33 Various Chapters From Walter C. Lanyon Books
A Divided Kingdom
A SPINNER IN THE SUN
ABOUT TRANSLATION
ALL THIS and MORE
AN END OF PRAYING
THE ANATOMY of HAPPINESS
THE ARC IN THE HEAVENS
ART THOU?
Assumption
At The Feet of the Master
THE AUTOMATIC POWER
AWAKE
B.C. AND B.J.
Before the Sandman Comes
BEHOLD! – WHAT MANNER OF LOVE
BELIEVEST THOU THIS?
The Blaze of Life
Blessed Are the Meek
BLESSINGS
Born Again
THE BOY WHO WENT to A PICNIC
BREAKING PATTERNS
BREAKING THE BREAD
BUT WHY DOESN’T IT WORK!
CAMILLA
Celestial Mechanics
CHRIST AND EVOLUTION
THE CHRIST MASS
Christmas
COME – EAT AND DRINK
CONCEPTION
CONCERNING ANGELS and HEAVENLY HOSTS
CONCERNING IMMORTALITY
A Divided Kingdom
THAT little kingdom that you call your very own – – look at it, examine into it. Is it divided? Are you of one mind and that one the mind that was also in Christ Jesus?
Do you believe that some people love while others hate you? If you do, then your kingdom is divided. “Love and hate cannot mingle” – – there is no common basis for them to meet on, and they cannot dwell in the same kingdom without causing strife, turmoil and finally a division in the kingdom. If you endow that man with a power to hate you, what good is it for you to say to yourself, “There is naught but love?” What good for you to say, “Love is all powerful?” Your kingdom is divided and it will fall. Perhaps it will not be utterly cast down, but it will be at strife. Enemies are not for the purpose of retarding your growth, but to aid you and to cling closer and closer to this great, all absorbing Love which heals everything, even so-called hate.
Do you believe that matter is the original creator – – do you think that the original sin, which is the very foundation of the lie that life is in matter and hence creation is matter, possible? If you do your kingdom is divided, and what good is it, or what profiteth it for you to declare the nothingness of matter? Do you believe that Love is both spiritual and sensual – – and say to yourself, “Suffer it to be so now?” If you do, your kingdom is divided and will fall. It will be of little merit or profit to say there is no sin and that it has no power, while you are indulging the senses. The divided kingdom will tell its own tale when it lies in a heap in the dust.
Do you believe in sickness to the extent that certain things are more difficult than others – – that there are so-called “stubborn cases” which do not yield at once” Do you believe in this and also try to believe that God is Health and that He is ever present and that He is all powerful? Then the Divided power will finally cleave to one of your arguments and in your direst need who shall say that it will not be to the belief in stubborn cases.
Do you believe that you have to probe deep into the minds of the wayfarer and find out all his little personal secrets in order to pronounce some certain thing the cause of his trouble? This isn’t love, but morbid curiosity which is hiding behind the veneer of Truth which you hold up to your patient. Soon the divided kingdom will no longer be a storehouse of the Word of God, but a storehouse or a madhouse of little petty, personal secrets about this one and that.
Your kingdom is the ever present NOW – – flowing with milk and honey, a place of light and joy – – it is the sheepfold with open doors by which all may go in and out with perfect assurance that therein they will find healing waters and green pastures of rest and strength. Set the walls of your kingdom to the line – – make its four walls true to the standard laid down in the Book. You can do this; start today by taking a positive stand for God. Build daily with words of love and light. Fill the well of your heart with love – – let it overflow so that the thirsty may drink freely. For every error which you have been telling and repeating, start a word of truth in its stead; every time you want to utter an unkind word, stop a moment and find one of your soldiers who are fighting on the side of good and send him out. Good words are the soldiers who are fighting on the side of right, and bad words the soldiers of darkness. When you bring out a whole battalion of these wicked soldiers and turn them loose in your attempt to picture your brother, you are throwing all your weight in the balance of evil. Words are the expression of thoughts – – so many bad words represent so many bad thoughts and vice versa.
If you will try for a single day to use nothing but good soldiers – – don’t even allow a bad soldier to show himself, let alone be used – – you will find that by noon of the first day you will have won a victory that you never dreamed of. Keep firing away with good words at the objective you wish to win and it will soon be yours. Don’t repeat error of any sort, don’t even say the words, and finally good words with their subsequent good deeds and results will be the rule instead of the exception in your life, and wonderful discoveries will come to you and with it a great, grand feeling of a kingdom which is whole – – a kingdom which is not divided and which will stand.
A SPINNER IN THE SUN
A large black spider ran swiftly along his elaborate web suspended in mid-air between two branches of a swaying willow tree. The early morning sun hit the diadem of dew drops and made them spurt rainbow lights in a magic circle about his splendid achievement.
He, like some magnificent Feudal Lord, suddenly let himself glide through space to the far reaches of his domain to reinforce a guy wire, made a lordly inspection of his estate and returned as suddenly and as easily as he had descended, to rest in silken dalliance in the center of his universe.
I looked at this masterpiece of engineering, any master engineer would have been proud to have created a like thing, and yet the spider had drawn it all from within himself. His whole world and way of expression came from within. He unwound his web upon which he was to go. Effortlessly traveled blithely over it and then retrieved it at will.
As I stood there watching the amazing spectacle the words of Jesus came forcibly to me – “I Am the Way” – the way of every man lies within him. Until he discovers that he lays his own way and travels it, he will insist that some outside influence is affecting his course in life. This sudden realization that everything has to come from within may jolt the lazy old human thought out of its self hypnosis; but the sooner it is discovered the sooner will the results take place which he has been seeking for so many years. How is it that Jesus repeatedly says “Look within – ask Me – Call upon Me – whatsoever you ask” and a host of other things, if the resources or the wherewithal from which to produce these things were not there? “Go within – shut the door,” etc., a thousand and one admonitions are given to find within yourself the thing you are looking for on the outside. Find it first as a reality, as the spider, before he plumbs his first line, finds the completed web within himself. “I AM The Way” – I AM is the Christ within you, your personal Christ.
Man, having lost his way in the maze of human thought, has failed to hear the words “I AM the way” – and continues to try to demonstrate the way of LIFE. He is all-unsuspecting that he too has within him all that is necessary to “go” anywhere he desires as with the spider, he has it all within himself but he keeps trying to get it on the outside.
The moment he discovers this inner resource he will re-orientate himself and chart his way by the sky Map given him by Jesus the Christ.
No man can by thinking do much, but by consciousness and recognition of his Divinity he can find a “way ye know not of” – he can escape the hopeless pattern of human destiny and Karmic debt. He will understand then how it is he must “be still and know that I am God” – and how it also is “then went he in and shut the door.”
Some of the magic of BEING “the Way” instead of trying to demonstrate an outside force, is shown in the movements of Jesus – when “instantly he was on the other side of the lake” – can you think that out – or make a way by which this would be possible? I believe not – you have to BE the WAY – or can you imagine demonstrating the way through a crowd? Unless you discover this wonderful capacity something or somebody is continually blocking your progress – but once you recognize it – then you manifest it. You are the Spinner in the Sun. It is wonderful – “I AM the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIGHT.” Your way is within you, chart your own Sky Lanes.
ABOUT TRANSLATION
Enoch was translated.
We are prone to make supernatural the idea of “Translation.” We are always looking for something unnatural to happen when God comes into expression. The most unpredictable things can take place and do take place all the time, – and we accept them without question. Witness the “transformation” that took place at Hiroshima at the introduction of the atomic bomb, an invention of man. Who wonders at that? A complete change of land and life taking place in a split second. Man can apparently do his “miracles” then – but with God, it is something else.
Jesus did not have any special gifts, – until He was translated by becoming aware of the Presence. He entered into a new degree of consciousness, and discovered certain capacities not known to the former state. Of Jesus He said, “I can of mine own self do nothing.”
It has been whispered about that “you” are to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That is a form of “translation.” It is a literal thing, as all the laws given by Jesus Christ are literal when understood. They are not to be demonstrated as something peculiar to a few people – but as natural laws coming into being when recognized. The action of God is in sharp focus – not in the soft focus of imagination.
Intellectual vanity is neither power nor understanding. The most wonderful thing about Jesus Christ is the fact that He materialized everything He talked about. His word was so replete with recognition it literally leaped into manifestation before the astonished eyes of His disciples. The yearning expressed in His words is moving. He wanted so to make man see the new dimension as natural and real – something that actually took place literally instead of hypothetically.
I wish He might have said of me, “I have not found so great faith – no, not in Israel” – I am wondering if some time or other the Christ is not going to say it to me and you? We are going to measure up surely to the place of absolute Faith and hear not only the, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” – the glorious statement “I have not found so great faith – no, not in Israel.” It will be thrilling. It’s coming. It will happen when we are translated from the present degree of “knowing the truth” into the place of “I AM the Truth.” Some wonderful things are going to happen to you, – that much I can write unto you.
Everyone in the Bible who “pleased God” experienced some sort of up-lift of expression, – and so we see Elijah taking off in a fiery chariot. And all those who did these things took their bodies with them. Jesus did the same thing – He took His body with Him. What good is it to be just consciousness without a temple of expression? The question then is, “For why will ye die?” I know all the answers from the human standpoint, – but none of them good enough. The answer is, you won’t when you are translated.
When you are translated “out” of the human intelligence into the Wisdom of God, you will speak with new tongues – and what you speak will take body and form.
You “please God” when you acknowledge HIM. You do not have to keep asking for things if you will let Him give you the desires of your heart. If you can do this naturally and without the foolishness of demonstrating Him, it will all take place “in the twinkling of an eye.”
“In all thy ways acknowledge Him And He shall direct thy paths.”
Do you begin to hear? – the perpetual acknowledgment of Him in everything: – devil, enemy, hell and disease, as well as friends, health and substance.
ALL THIS and MORE
ONE BECOMES almost breathless when contemplating for a single moment what can happen through faith.
But then, what the average man calls faith is but a pseudo-hoping that something which could happen, might happen.
But faith which is fully accepted actually does become the substance of things hoped for and the evidence (manifestation) of things not seen. And so this state of consciousness experiences “wholeness”. “Thy faith hath made thee whole!” It states “thy” faith, – not someone else’s, – showing that the entire operation takes place within you and not in the consciousness of another.
When another prays for you, you must meet him with your one hundred percent agreement, or nothing is done in that place. “Not many mighty works were done because of their unbelief.” It does not say they could not have taken place, – for in reality they were already done, awaiting recognition. So “thy” – your very own – faith hath made thee whole, because in essence you are whole. Through faith you are re-cognizing this essential fact, – discovering it again.
And so you contemplate this magnificent Truth in breathless adoration of God. You see that it only takes faith as a grain of mustard seed to remove a mountain, to open the eyes of the blind, to raise the dead, or to do a thousand and one other things.
What is the matter with us, that we continually make it difficult? You do believe in God, don’t you? Well then, how many more stupid man-made lessons, with all their psychological twists and modern quirks, will it take before you discover the simplicity of faith.
When the Inspiration of the Almighty has come unto you, it shall lead you into ALL things. Is ALL enough, or must you have more.
When you discover your grain of mustard seed, you will be finished with human ways and means and enter into the WHOLENESS that faith brings.
AN END OF PRAYING
“Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.”
What is the end of praying in your life? Does anything take place? And, if not, why not? Could Solomon make the fire descend from heaven which was to consume away the sacrifices and offerings?
The end of praying is always the same, whether it be for a king or a beggar. The true prayer (pure recognition of the Presence) is always accompanied by the consuming fire, which destroys both the belief in, and the manifestation of evil. The end of praying is glorious. It takes place automatically and naturally; it is the unseen Power which works in such a mysterious way, and at such a time, and in such a place, as is least expected, and always where help or assistance is said to be impossible. It is Wonderful!
Solomon, as a historical king, is not of great interest. His reign was neither brilliant nor grand, but Solomon, as a symbol standing for wisdom and Soul, is most wonderful. That infinite capacity to choose realities instead of shadows is shown forth in the prayers that he made. He (the soul) did not ask for manifestation, but for the Power back of the manifestation, knowing well that the manifestation, or the demonstration, could be easily destroyed, or dissipated. He called for the Power back of the symbol, and thereby worshiped the “Blesser and not the blessing, the Demonstrator and not the demonstration, the Giver and not the gift.”
The great tendency of man is to worship the demonstration; so he worships gold, instead of that which is back of gold. His love of gold is the very root of all evil. He sets up the golden calf, money, and falls down and prays to it. He calls it power, and endows this God with a thousand and one other powers. He says a man is only successful when he has much gold, and yet he daily sees signs and proofs that this is not true. His mind is hypnotized by the long years of looking at appearances for his basic principle of life.
Prayers made to this God of Mammon are received with derision and laughter. A man praying for prosperity constantly, is usually in the depths of poverty. In his heart he knows how impossible it is to get gold, and his lip service is void of returns. This is the prodigal praying in his pigsty. He must arise and go unto his father; he must turn from the appearances, and then the end of praying will be a sudden descent of the fire, invisible yet visible, which will burn up the chaff of human thinking, and reveal the glorious blessings of the Presence. It is Wonderful! It is Wonderful! It is Wonderful! We must pray in this fashion, and then be willing to let the fire descend in its own way, and according to the manner in which it will be most beneficial. Many pray and then think to direct the fire, and are thereby burned or hurt by their own failure to “let” the Power of God through into expression in Its own way. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss,” is said to that one who trying to make God do his bidding, instead of letting God run His universe. When you are willing to “let” the rain of fire fall where it will, and upon what it will, you will also hear the words “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name; ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” It is Wonderful! No matter what you have begged for, or asked for before, it is all nothing as compared with the overflowing abundance of substance and joy which is to be released upon you when you pray as Solomon (the Soul) prayed. It is glorious.
“Now when Solomon had made an end of praying.” Right at that moment, when the end had come to his meditation – it was NOW, the glorious Presence, the HERE of LIFE. At that instant, when he had made the complete Recognition and agreement with God, then “the fire came down from heaven.” Where is heaven? What is this fire that comes down? Heaven is the consciousness which is en rapport with God here and now, and the fire which descends as the Recognition of the Power of God, which is a majority over any so-called power of the human mind. It is Wonderful! “Heaven and earth are full of Thee.” Remember, “nothing is impossible to God,” and it was this very Power which Jesus said dwelt within you, and was willing and ready to cooperate with you, yea, to fill you full of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Fire which would descend on any evil condition, and consume it. Not a vestige of the former belief, or manifestation, can stand before this blazing fire of Revelation. No matter who you are, “nor how little success you have had, nor what years of misunderstanding you have gone through, the moment you pray with the Recognition that there is a Presence, and stand on that point, you will see, when you have made an end of praying, that the fire will descend, and “the former things are passed away” – they “shall not be remembered or come into mind.” It is Wonderful!
The fire of Spirit in which you can live, move, breathe and have your being, is the identically same fire which was seen in the bush. The Hebrew children knew the Fire of SPIRIT, which was a million times more powerful than the fire which man’s hatred had kindled, and so they walked in the midst of it unharmed, and came forth without the smell of fire on their garments. But the men who built the fire were consumed. It is Wonderful! “Be not afraid; it is I.” “I will burn up with an unquenchable fire the husks of morality that may yet still cling, and I will set you on a Hallowed fire, and you will feel the sparks penetrating your very being, kindling anew the love I have poured out upon you.”
“Be still, and know that I AM God” takes on a new and different meaning. We are through with the “trying to get things,” and the making of a demonstration. We have gone forth to Recognize the PRESENCE, and to know that the “end of prayer” is the descent of the Holy Fire, or the instant manifestation; the great Fire of Spirit which, unseen, consumes the beams and rafters of the material structure called problem. It reveals the things which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man.” No man, believing in Money and Gold, can know the Glories that are prepared, for these glories have not entered into his heart. His heart is so filled with fear and limitation that there is no room for this unseen power. It is glorious when you relax and let go, and make your contact with this Presence, and let the answer of your prayer be the descent of the Holy Fire, which will, in a twinkling, destroy the ugly manifestation that has caused you so much anxiety.
When you come to Prayer quietly and naturally, and are through with all the so-called tricks of words and phrases, then you will have done with the idea that you need to “peep,” and “look,” and “wonder,” if your prayer is going to bring about results. You will have the glorious assurance that “NOW when Solomon [Your Soul] had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.” Yes, you will go from that prayer refreshed and gloriously abandoned: having done all, you will stand, and see the salvation of the Lord.
There is something glorious about praying, something that is like the dawn. You know the moment it begins to appear it is going straight on into the full noonday of manifestation. Nothing can withhold it. No matter how dark, and useless, and painful, the night seemed; the prayer released is exactly like the dawn. Nothing that man can do can stop it. He cannot shut it away from the world at large. He can only shut himself away from it, by hiding in a dungeon of his own creation. But all the while the dawn will be there, going steadily and uninterruptedly on to its full noonday glory. So it is with Prayer. When you have made an end to your prayer, the Fire descends, and nothing can stop it, and it will consume away the dross, and leave the pure gold of Life – the gold which will buy in any market a thousandfold more than the gold of Croesus. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! Do you begin to see what is the manner of prayer of Solomon?
When Solomon had made an end of prayer, he was not curios to see if the fire would descend. Curiosity is rewarded by blindness; it is the destroying element in the human mind. Curiosity to know if God can answer your little request, and just how He will do it, causes a veil to come before the eye; and, even though you walked all along the way with Him, you would not recognize Him. That is why, when Jesus went into the house of Jairus, He put the people forth in order that the Holy of Holies, that place of meeting between the Soul and God, should not be profaned by those who only looked for a sign, and who wanted to tear away the very covering to see how the heart beat underneath.
“Be not afraid it is I.” When you stop looking for signs and make your prayer one of Recognition, then you are certain to have the same results as Solomon had; the silent, unseen Fire consuming every vestige of the belief which caused you so much suffering and annoyance before.
The feeble prayer, “I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,” is the wail of one who is looking on the outside for a sign, and who is failing to recognize the fact that;
“Even if you do not know all things (as man), there is something within you that does know all things, and if you will allow this Something to function in its rightful capacity, it will suddenly be as though you do know all things.” “God’s ways are past finding out. My ways are not your ways.”
Do you begin to understand that the human reasoning and science can never fathom the depths of Inspiration? You do not need to worry about the ways and means of Spirit; “I have a way that ye know not of” – a way that is not made by hands, a way that is not thought out by the human intellect. “I AM the WAY,” and that WAY is the only way out of the human beliefs of evil. Can you trust this? Can you “lean on ME” instead of on what some person says, or thinks? Then you shall hear, “I shall sustain you.” How does that sound? Aren’t you glad that you are beginning to see the Presence as HERE and NOW, and as ever operative? Aren’t you glad to know, when you have “made an end of praying,” that the fire of manifestation is descending, and is destroying the old beliefs that have bound you so tightly? Aren’t you glad that the answer to your prayer is like the coming of dawn moving swiftly on in all its glory to the full noonday of manifestation, and that not ten million men or nations can stop the effulgence of its on-going? “BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.” Not old things patched up. “Behold I make all things new” by the fire which consumes the old worn-out beliefs, and reveals the “Temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
“I AM with you always,” and in ALL ways. You do not have to fear, or worry, so long as you recognize this fact. “Those that are for you are more than those that are against you.” The Recognition of God as HERE and NOW is more than the millions of beliefs that there are two powers, and that evil is stronger than good.
Aren’t you glad?
“Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.”
The Fire descended and consumed the evil beliefs, and the GLORY of the LORD filled the house. The Glorious light of Health filled the body, and went searching the joints and marrow, seeking out and consuming the beliefs in age and disease. The Glory of the Lord filled the house (the consciousness), and brought out radiant success and happiness, and dried up the tears of struggle and weariness. The Glory of the Lord filled the house, and pushed out the boarders of the tent, and gave to expression a new and lovely individuality, which crowned it with eternal success and joy.
No wonder Solomon sang his song to his Beloved. The Soul that perceives the glorious Life, which is complete, and lost in God, finds no words to describe the Beloved. “and the glory of the Lord filled the house.” Can you be still a moment, and feel this fire of the Spirit searching the temple – body – and quickening it with the Power beyond the limitations of the body? “For in HIM we live, move, and breathe, and have our being” also stands for: “IN us He lives and moves and breathes and has His being.” Within and without and round about us, is the glory which fills everything, and which goes before us, as a Light that lighteth every man unto salvation. It is Wonderful!
Do you see how it is possible, then, for your prayers to reach and help another, in a way heretofore undreamed of? Your prayers will be divorced from person, or system, or words; they will be pure recognition of the Presence, and when you have made an end of that prayer, the fire will descend upon that one and consume the fear and limitations under which he has been placed, if he will be but open to receive it. It is Wonderful! The old personal idea fades out; “for I Am here, I Am there, I Am everywhere.”
“We do not need to worry about being, or going to any place in person, particularly when it is to be done from a spiritual standpoint. You do not have to lay your hands upon any to heal them, neither do they need to touch you, for God is not absent from anyplace. ‘I’ can reach your condition, wheresoever you are, and not only your condition, but ‘I’ can reach you, wheresoever you are. Then with or without a body ‘I’ am just as operative. Just the moment you are in tune with the principle, that moment the principle is pouring out its manifestation on you.”
It is Wonderful!
The whole house is filled with the Glory of God. Every nook and every cranny is filled with the Light of the Fire which is released by the Holy Ghost. You are made anew.
“Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house.”
It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! – that you are beginning to see the meaning of true prayer, and are fully aware that the answer to all prayer is the descent of fire which consumes the beliefs in evil.
“The glory of the Lord filled the house” – you.
THE ANATOMY of HAPPINESS
CONCERNING INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION
“I CAME THAT YOUR JOY might be FULL.” This is the reason Jesus came with His New-old Revelation of a plus-value in LIFE.
The Anatomy of Happiness is discovered to be an invisible structure upon which all enduring things are hung.
The discovery that all manifestation in the material world is in a constant stage of change, a shuffling off or a disintegration of the successive manifestations, minimizes the importance of things. They only endure for a time, as the Power of God integrates itself in a never-ending stream of FRESHNESS and LIFE.
The “space between” the works of Jesus, – that is, from the time He was confronted with what the world called a “problem” and the manifestation of the answer to that problem, while indefinable, is a “semi-hiatus”, – the immeasurable non-space between “now you see it and now you don’t” of human thought, – the split second when He stood midway between the findings of the scientific mind of man and the Golden Splendour of “the fields are WHITE”.
The elasticity of human thought is finally stretched to a breaking point, – and that which seemed to cover so much surface, shrinks into insignificance as does a toy balloon become nothing when pricked with a pin.
THE ARC IN THE HEAVENS
You NEVER SEE THE SUN that is causing the rainbow, – and yet you know it is there. “No man shall see God and live.” Power cannot be seen by the eyes of man, – but he can see the results of it embodied in the infinite shapes of his consciousness.
The mist which went up and watered the whole face of the earth after we took unto ourselves the belief that we could create, has so completely enveloped us that we believe in the distorted shadows caught on its surface as realities. We believe that we are in a world filled with all manner of ugly shapes and forms against which we must fight. There is no escape from this through the teachings founded on such beliefs.
And so we sit in our cave of dreams, watching the pure White Light pass through the spectrum and break into a thousand colors, nuances and tints. We watch a horrible war unroll its bloody canvas before us and think it real, – yet it lies only within the thought of man and is projected by his divided thinking. We believe the ugly diseases of man are a reality, and then try to rid ourselves of the pictures patterning on the screen of our body. The moment the thought of it is snapped, the illusion disappears, the screen is white and clean, – and we say, “I have been healed”.
No, you have not actually been healed. You have merely disintegrated the false belief which held the picture in place, and without which there could be no picture. Health is the out picturing of LIFE, and therefore eternally existent. You do not make it, handle it, nor yet control it. You recognize it, – and it is then established on the earth.
All these ugly pictures of life are but the uneasy, terrifying nightmares of the dreamer as he lies on his tortuous couch of belief. He clutches at the shadows, – only to find they are nothing but empty
“This dreaming, – this somnambulism, – -is what we on earth call life, – wherein the most undoubtedly wander, as if they knew right hand from left; yet they only are wise, who know they know nothing.”
There is nothing of a permanent nature to be known from the findings of the human thought. How could the mind which is “a liar and the father of it” give forth anything but lies.
“When a man loses his life, he shall find it”when he lets go of the limited concept of life, he will find his infinite life everywhere present and immediately available to the degree he is able to ‘take’ or accept. Jesus knew this so well that He passed through the dream pictures of human belief and dispersed the mists that clung with such apparent reality to man.
Man, the most noble creature God created and endowed with ability to LET the never-ending LIGHT into manifestation, is bested by the least animal or “beast”, as he is more wont to call them. Carlyle has something pertinent and full of promise to think on:
“The horse I ride has his own whole fell. Strip him of the girths and flaps and extraneous tags, and the noble creature is his own seamstress and weaver and spinner, – -nay, his own boot-maker, jeweler and man-milliner. He bounds free through the valleys with a perennial rain-proof court- suit on his body; wherein warmth and easiness to fit have reached perfection; nay, the graces have also been considered, and frills and fringes, with gay variety of color, fealty appended, and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While I, – -good heavens, – have thatched myself over with the dead fleeces of sheep, the bark of vegetables and the entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seal, the felt of furred beasts, and walk around a moving RAY Screen, over-heaped with the shreds and tatters from the charnel house of Nature, where they would have rotted, to rot on me more slowly.”
Carlyle is being a bit facetious, perhaps, – but he is aiming at the same ONENESS which Jesus knew. “You are clothed with the Spirit.” Recognizing this, the material counterpart of it will be seen and will be available. This is beyond the confines of human thought, and there is a way to “work” it out from appearances, – but there is also a definite way to bring it to pass when you BELIEVE.
There’s that word again, – BELIEVE. It is the last hurdle for the human mind, – the point of departure from the prison-house of evil.
When Adam was caught in his attempt to establish his equality with God as a creator, he was ashamed because he was “naked”. Why? Because he was in the presence of SIGHT which was not stepped down to the surface of things, – but saw through it. So does this penetrating Light of God go through the multi-colored beliefs of man, discovering the perfection of man, – naked, – or free from the ghastly clothing of disease, fear and limitation, – of which he is ashamed.
We are a little afraid of the “come unto ME” when we are faced with nothing more apparently solid than a sea of water, – but there it is. We have tried all the other things and ideas. They have all failed, – and now this step. It may be your situation is a common, prosaic one, – but nevertheless, you must STEP out if you expect to reach the boat. And how can you STEP OUT if you do not hear anything more than the mere words “come unto ME”. You have to HEAR that which said the words, not the words, – but the something which makes it possible, if you will obey.
So the sea that lies before you is only one of the dreams from the phantasmagoria of the dream cave. Do you see why the command is so often made, “Rise”, when you cannot rise, – “Open your eyes”, when you are blind, – “Stretch forth your hand”, when you are in a straight jacket of paralysis. You do none of these movements physically, or because you “try” to do them. It is something that happens when you have “touched” that wonderful agreement within you. After that, the words “Stretch forth your hand” run through the withered arm like a flow of electricity through the feed wires of a great city, flooding it with LIGHT. Every physical manifestation is preceded by the spiritual recognition of the PRESENCE within you. “The Lord is in His Holy Temple, – let all the earth rejoice!” – and it does, because the earth is born anew and the mists have cleared away.
So now we know that healing is recognition, – and not the result of words, or prayers, or aphorisms.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of Him?” Mindful, does it say? Did you ever think of this, – that God is MINDFUL of you? And what then? Well, more than you could ever imagine in your limited human brain-mind.
It is all so in reverse to what we have been thinking, – but it works. The ONENESS of LIFE becomes more and more apparent as you step out on the waters of human belief when you have HEARD the WORD commanding you to do just that impossible thing. “Come unto ME.” In the final analysis, there is no other place to go, – and it is the place you have been seeking lo! these many years. And these time and space elements are also mere limitations put upon eternity by the fallen Adam thought. He must have a beginning and an ending to a thing which was never born, – nor can never die, – but is ETERNAL in the Heavens.
If he does not hear this word, he will accept as his lot the death shroud, woven of beliefs, the chiefest being ‘three score years and ten’, – and many times much less. All this in spite of the command “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. What does it mean, this “transformed”, – a temporary change for the better, or actually re-formed into the transfiguration of your True Self?
Many cry for transformation, – but could you take what goes with it. A grandmother said to me, following an evening lecture, – “Yes, I could take it, of course, I would like to be eighteen years old again”. “But”, I said, “How would you gain entrance to your home, if this happened to you? You don’t suppose you could convince your husband that an eighteen-year-old girl is his seventy-year-old wife, with grandchildren of twenty, do you”?
Yet it is possible in the Spirit, – but with this, so is it with most manifestations of Spirit, – can you take it, – and pay the so-called price of it all? Are you sure? Well, just to the degree you stand up to the Spirit, can it come through.
But this has nothing to do with the imagination of the human mind which thinks the change from one state to another does not mean the cracking up of shells of limitations, which may at the instant seem like a definite loss. If you cannot lose your life, you certainly cannot find it. Or if you are still looking back on the shells which you have thrown off, you may wish to “return to Egypt”, – finding it more comfortable and easy for the moment at least.
To “Follow ME”, is not a dramatic trailing off through palm-covered roads, – but a trek into spirit, – although you may not make a move physically.
All this revelation is so secret and so far-removed from the human world of thought, that you are commanded to “Tell no man”, – no, not any, – not a single one. When you are ready, “SHOW”, – and then there is no argument pro or con. No one believes you can and will be healed of an incurable disease, except those who are healed, – and they do not need to be told, – they will SEE.
Deeply hidden in the cloak of human thought is this beautiful Naked Truth, – swathed with the Garment’s of Light, which will be stepped down to a point of visibility to you and to the on-looker.
There is a reason for the HOPE that is within us, – and this evidence comes to the surface in daily life in a thousand ways. The cat, caught in a tree, will bring out all the neighbors and even the fire department, because there is THAT within which wants to help. It is in all of us, and happy is the man who can see through the heavy shroud of human thought and find that spark. “Sermons (silent ones in stones, – and good in everything”, – and so it is.
And there is Life, Happiness, Success, within you, in spite of the diseased clothing you may be wearing. “Seek and ye shall find”, – yes, it says “YE SHALL”, – not maybe nor perhaps, – but definitely and utterly. You cannot fail if you follow ME. “Believe on ME”, – your Divinity, – and be saved from the beliefs of the human mind.
Words and language are only the outer garments of thought. That is why diplomacy flourishes so definitely, – saying one thing and meaning another, – always leaving a loop-hole of escape. But in the final analysis only the import of the thought carries through, – and so you may say “Peace, peace”, – and there is no peace. If there is no consciousness of peace, then there can be no peace. Peace will never come to the world until it is within man himself, and then the world cannot escape it. It will manifest as a natural thing, instead of something that must be held in place by legislation.
So you live in a world within a world, – and the LIGHT of your world is all that is real or permanent. Jesus, living- in the Kingdom of Heaven, exuded such LIGHT that we are still finding our way by it after two thousand years. It is the ONLY Light that ever came to the Adam-world. All else is a picture of a picture, – and a copy of an original is already filled with defects. When this is passed along for a time, the original light becomes dim indeed.
“I AM the LIGHT of this world”, – THE Light, – the ONLY Light, – for I AM the Light of God, and in that Light there is no darkness. All the flimsy garments of Adam and his beliefs are cast off. You look through and discover the Veritus, – the Naked Truth.
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but MY WORD shall endure forever”. One heaven and one earth after another, made of the mists of the Adam mind,:shall disintegrate and pass away. But there is no change in Spirit, God. The only change that takes place is our concept of HIM. Our concept of health one day, is changed into a greater concept the next, – and so with wealth and happiness.
And so the “enlarging” of the borders of the tent of things takes place with never-ending variety. If we are to die daily, we must be born anew daily. The things of the former life must go with the dying, – and the wholly NEW must come forth.
So that invisible SUN which is casting its gorgeous rainbow across a dark cloud, is always there. And so is God! “Fear not, – it is I”, – be not afraid. Keep the secret in your heart and SEE.
The type-setter rarely ever understands the story as he sets his type. He is working wholly with the mechanics. The most wonderful revelations and stories may pass through his fingers, – but except in rare instances, he must read the book later if he wishes to know what it is about, – even though it is his handiwork as far as its make-up is concerned. So it is with us, – we can live life in a mechanical fashion, without the slightest concept of what is in it. But, –
“When the inspiration of the Almighty is come unto you, it shall lead you into ALL things”,- and give you that extended vision which can see through the shabby garments of human thought and; discover the pure nakedness of your SOUL. It can see all that has to do with the man under the fig tree, and it can see through every fabricated or prefabricated material of the human thought.
Yes, – there is the “Arc in the Heavens”, – the “Cloud by Day”, – the “Pillar of Fire”, – the “Burning Bush”, – and a million other ways I can talk to you. Can you hear what I AM saying? I AM the VOICE !
ART THOU?
ART THOU a Christian?
And Jesus enumerated the works of spirit and we can well imagine the eyes of Nicodemus grew wide with wonderment because when Jesus spoke, it was the WORD that fused with his words and made them take shape and form as he spoke-but Nicodemus, still filled with wonder, asked: “How can these things be?”
The answer Jesus gave him is a classic question of all times-and more especially to the Christian.
“Art thou a master and ask these things?”
Art thou a Christian and ask whether the healing can take place or not? Art thou a professor of the WORD and yet are wondering when, or if, it can heal the tangled patters of human thought that is holding you captive?
You admit you are a Christian-and yet admit you are usable to heal the sick? What is the difficulty? Art thou a Christian and are still asking whether you can or will be healed? Does this terrible question send you headlong into oblivion? Does this confusion of thought cause you to realize that you have yet to BELIEVE? Has your “believing” only been a form of credulity of the human mind?
Art thou a Christian and ask these questions? Do you—are you still standing in the place of “maybe it can happen?” Art thou a Christian and are still trying to reduce the Power of God to the level of trying to human thinking, saying at the same instant “who by taking thought can etc.?” Art thou a Christian and are still TRYING to heal the sick? Jesus admitted he could do nothing of himself—BUT—and that is the point, the apex of the whole matter, you either ester into, the sew mansion of being a Christian and begin to see manifestations, or are guessing and plundering with a “System” of the truth is which there is nothing but confusion and disappointment.
“Believest thou that I am able to do this?” As other question that only a Christian can answer, for the moment you do believe, manifestation or what the world calls demonstration falls into place with the ease that a shadow is cast.
Art thou a Christian and still wonder whether the problem you are hypnotized by can be disintegrated? The moment you recognize it eves though so sign is visible, you have reached the charmed combination of “Whereas before I was blind NOW I can see.” Now, at that instant of recognition of the Blessed WORD, do you suddenly leap into the air out of the distorted picture of human thought and belief. It is wonderful-and so it is. All this lovely LIGHT is infinitely remote to the one who believes in two powers-though he professes with his lips that he is a Christian.
By your own words are you made or destroyed—-“Thou art the man.” As he talked the spirit said unto him, “Thou art the man”-self-accused, selfmade. It is suddenly magnificent when you become a Christian. Things begin to appear; are revealed—discovered. In the barren place of nothing, suddenly everything. It always has been so. The key to the situation was the discovery that you are a Christian, a Christed one, and suddenly all is changed. “In the twinkling of an eye.” “Look again”—-what has happened? In the place of nothing is everything. Art thou a Christian? Do you believe?
Assumption
“HE Made himself as God” – “I and my Father are One.”
It is natural that in making himself as God, becoming One with the Father, Christ partook quite freely of the Divine nature. In other words, he assumed the nature of God; the demonstrations of a necessity followed – “the signs follow.” When man makes this assumption, when he recognizes that all life is God, he will assume the qualities of God naturally, and find them out-pictured in his life. He will not then try to demonstrate the various attributes of his Invisible Power, but, by assumption, will be able to call them forth into manifestation at his will. “Ye shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass” can only be true of one possession or assuming the God nature. As long as this manifestation of God seems unusual or miraculous, just so long will it be little in evidence to him. But when man comes to the place where “he makes himself as God” – not a god, but as God: of the same nature and substance – then by this assumption the natural flow of God-expression will take place, and he will begin to understand he is “under grace.” He will understand and accept the truth of the statement, “Joint heirs with Christ,” and Son of the Living God. He will begin to make his assumption in the secret place within. He will recognize that, being created of God, he must of necessity partake of the nature of God. His assumption of his God nature will have nothing to do with the former idea of wishing and hoping for things to come to pass. Once man is conscious of his true Self, his decrees will be surrounded with confidence and abandon. He will not find it unnatural that the Son of the Living God should appropriate the gifts of Spirit.
Assumption of the God nature, as shown by the Master, is not akin to the old idea of visualization, wherein the person composed a picture to his liking and floated it in the imagination, trying to make it come into manifestation. Assuming the “full stature of Christ” is really contemplating the “vision shown to you on the Mount.” You do not create it or imagine it. It is already existent and revealed to you. Assuming the Divine nature (making yourself as God), man perceives the perfect where he formerly saw the imperfect.
The Assumption of the Virgin (single-minded purity of consciousness) brought forth the new idea. The word became flesh – in other words, the assumption became manifest.
From the standpoint of assumption man finds ease more natural than dis-ease. He ceases to get rid of disease as a reality, and contemplates the Son of God living in the perfect ease of Spirit. One moment of this realization and his disease has vanished into nothingness, for the perfect Self is thereby revealed and made manifest.
From the standpoint of assumption, man gains the actual, concrete results he has failed to accomplish by the processes of imagination he formerly used. Are you afraid to follow in the steps of the Master, and assume your Divine rights and see them into manifestation? Are you afraid to accept the results of consciously accepting your birthright?
“The worm of the dust” finally discovers that he can do nothing to change or better himself, for he is a product of the dual belief in good and evil. Working with the body and personality is exactly the same thing.
No matter what you have been, done, or left undone, when the Christ has been recognized as your true Self, all former limitations flee away. Thousands of sincere souls, seeking the light, have spent years trying to better the condition of the “worm in the dust” – trying to make “John Smith” a better man, healthier, richer, or happier – but have accomplished little. The caterpillar cannot change except from within. No good trying to make a caterpillar fly; it is impossible. A complete change has to take place, a transformation. Jesus the carpenter becomes Christ, the Son of the Living God, with all power. The caterpillar becomes the butterfly.
Certain laws have to be heeded. If the caterpillar fails to close itself within its cocoon, it might have the desire and the capacity to become a butterfly, but would be utterly unable to do so, because it failed to heed the law of secrecy. To lose the personality, secrecy is necessary. The change will be too great for the prying, doubting Thomas to participate in the glory of it. “See that ye tell no man” wraps a cloak about the one who suddenly begins the process of assumption, just as the cocoon is built around the grub that is to become the butterfly. Later, that which acts as a cloak of protection becomes a hindrance and is cast off. The scaffolding is torn down finally, in order that the perfect structure may be seen. The secrecy gives up its perfect manifestation, then man may say, “Go and show John.”
The change that is made between the grub and the butterfly is tremendous, but it is nothing as compared to the change that takes place in the one who evolves from the “John Smith” personality (the worm of the dust) into the Son of the Living God. What was impossible to “John Smith” is divinely natural to the New Idea. As the butterfly seeks a new mode and means of expression after it has given up its caterpillar state of existence, so the man who has assumed his Sonship, and seen it out into manifestation, moves into a new heaven and a new earth. The butterfly takes no cognizance of its former expression – no worrying over its mistakes, shortcomings, omissions, and fears. They are nothing. The new expression is so far removed from the old, it is as a dream. “The former things are passed away” – “they shall be remembered no more, neither shall they come into mind.” So the new Son of the Living God moving into his new kingdom of expression drops off all worries and fears, the cause and effect of the “John Smith” personality.
“Be still and know that I AM God,” takes on a new meaning: Be still and assume the glories of this new estate. Assume them in the secret place – easily, naturally; assume them and rest them in the silence. “Be wise as serpents – harmless as doves.” Know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, then you will know all, see all, and hear all.
Come away from the noisy personality who wants to change the “John Smith” and heal him and make him prosper. You are the Son of the Living God, and when you recognize this you are through with the foolish idea of making demonstrations, and you will see the constant out-pouring of the substance of God through the new idea by the assumption of the Son. “One in All and All in One.” Be still and serenely assume the God-given qualities, and hide them deep in the cocoon of silence. Then will they burst forth as glorious freed expressions. “Be not afraid; it is I” – the very “I” that is able to assume its God inheritance is at this time speaking to you. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” It is already there, awaiting recognition. It does not need healing, prospering, being made happy or joyous. It is already these things. Identify yourself with It. “Acquaint now thyself with HIM and be at peace.” “Know ye not that ye are gods?” Do you know it? If so, when will you assume the God-like qualities and see them into manifestation? Be still – build the secret cocoon about you presently you shall be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
At The Feet of the Master
“AND they found him clothed, and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master.” They found that maniac who had been living in the tombs; who had torn himself in anguish; who had frightened others; “clothed, and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master.”
The story of the maniac is the story of every man. It is your story. When the Christ passes by he finds you in the tombs of the past, dwelling with dead thoughts and conditions. Living with the whited bones of past accomplishments, or fears. Hiding behind the tombs of personality. Trying to make that which is dead and done with appear to be alive. Screaming to the passerby in a ghastly voice, swollen with pride and egotism, telling of your attainments. No wonder, then, when the voice of the Christ is heard, you call out, “‘What have we to do with thee? Go away and leave us alone.” The old personality, with its graveyard full of pride of personal attainment, fears to give up its only claim to attention. It has built tombs, elaborate and ornate, to each of its accomplishments. It has dug deep into the stones the records of what it has done, and it hates to see this passing into the limbo of oblivion.
Many a man has awakened to find himself in this graveyard, living the life of a maniac, fingering over the dead things, and wondering why life was so uneventful and ugly. Mentally he lives with the dead. He heeds not the injunction, “Let the dead bury their dead.” He has his tombs to which he is bound. There are in every mental cemetery ghastly vaults of ugly things, memories of failure, disease, and limitation. Their history is scratched deep in the cold marble.
“Let the dead bury their dead; follow thou me,” must be obeyed implicitly. Nothing in the past is worthy of consideration; nothing that you have done or left undone is worthy of remembrance. “Come out from among them and be ye separate.” Come out from the graveyard of your own making, leave every tomb and be free. You give up nothing when you give up the personal idea for the Christ. The new day dawns across the cold marbles of the past, and you awaken to glorious possibilities. The Master speaks to you and says, “It is well.”
The dirty rags of personal beliefs and griefs fall away, and you are naked, stripped of your personal impedimenta – everything seems to go away, and then you are “clothed” and in your right mind (the Christ Mind), sitting at the feet of the Master (the Inner Lord). At last “the peace that passeth all understanding” enfolds you, and you rest. The floods of forgetfulness wash away the debris of yester-years, and in the place of the tombs are fields of lilies – fields of fresh attainment and glory. You are alive, and the dead thing has been carried out of your life. “Though a man were dead, yet shall he live,” has been made literally true for you. The new life that is surging through your being is the life that has left the past forever.
It is reported that, when the maniac child was brought to the Master, his parents went into elaborate details of the evil from which he suffered: and then said, “If you possibly can, good Master, heal him.” The Master replied, “Why did you say ‘possibly’?” Whether this is accurately recorded or not, it brings with it the strident, flaming question, Why did you say “possibly”? Why do you, who admit the all power of God, and yourself as the Son of God, wonder if He can possibly accomplish the trifling thing that you are seeking? “O ye of little faith” is the rebuke that comes to us time and time again, as we see that we are constantly returning to the cemetery of past failures – looking among the dead bones of yesterday for a spark of life, whitewashing the rotten caskets of yesterday’s attainments, trying to make them as new.
Caught in the old beliefs, we recite the evils we have suffered at great length. We go into the ghastly details of past accomplishments. We tell what we have done to the glory of God, instead of showing forth the true consciousness of God in the present manifestation.
The Light burns high these days; the Coming of the Christ is taking place in many – not through or by some creed, but through the awakening of the “maniac” in the tomb of dead beliefs. “The wisdom of man is foolishness in the eyes of God.” Then the man with this wisdom must be insane in the truest sense of the word. Inversely speaking, “the wisdom of God is foolishness in the eyes of man” – and Jesus was accordingly considered a fanatic or insane man. But, once the glory of the Christ steals upon you and you are ready to “rise and follow ME,” YOU Will know the peace – the glorious peace “that passeth all understanding.”
Beloved, you are not giving up anything when you leave the tomb of yesterday; when you leave the graveyard of relative thought and belief. You are coming out into the new dimension – the dimension of infinity, as it were; the place where you begin to see the naturalness of God’s love toward you. This love enables you to see clearly beyond the dead beliefs into life eternal.
What a glory comes to you when you find yourself in your Right Mind. For the first time the feeling of assurance comes to you. The consciousness of peace. The beauty of balance and soundness.
Lazarus comes out of his tomb, and the graveclothes of yester-beliefs are cut away from him. “Ye must be born again.” To be born again does not imply a process of making over an old thing. It is a casting off of the old, as it were, and an appropriation of the new. It is a conscious recognition of the agelessness of Spirit in all its glorious manifestation here and now.
Are you the maniac in the tomb? You who read? Have you the tombs of cold marble hidden away in the darkness of your mind? The Master is passing; even now, as you read, I Am speaking to you. I Am calling you to “come out from among them and be ye separate.” Leave all the dead things of the past and come out into the glorious sunshine of today. You are not losing anything by this giving up.
When the maniacal thoughts of relativity are cast from you, they are self-destroyed. They are drowned in the sea of oblivion. They are gone forever. And their name is legion. A thousand little dishonesties and conceits disappear before the searchlight of the New Idea. The coddling and petting of the human personality is cast off as so much excess baggage. You stand revealed and free – the Son of the Living God – not asking again “if you possibly can,” but rather accepting the glorious gift of “decreeing,” of “speaking the word.” What is so strange and weird about the fact that a universe evolved out of a God power should be found in full possession of this God power? What is so magical about the fact that you should find this God power operating in your life, and bringing out the natural results of this power? As we recognize the Presence more and more, we realize that its manifestation is only natural, Drink deep, beloved, of the waters of Life – the refreshing sense of joy that comes over you when you realize that you are clothed and in your right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master. It is well. Fear not.
THE AUTOMATIC POWER
It is a fine, healthy feeling that comes with the realization that you cannot change God by praying to Him; that you cannot change Him by saying words or thinking things. An avalanche of false beliefs slides into the chasm of oblivion when you begin to recognize that God is changeless.
We have wondered into a far land, full of strange doctrines, which led us to believe that we could make God do our bidding. “Oh, no,” comes a great protest from a mass of souls who daily are telling God what is wrong with the world and the other man, and are also instructing Him how to better them. “Oh, no,” also comes from an army of people who believe that the purpose of treatment is to make God alter His mind.
Many people have come to believe that the study of Truth is for the purpose of gaining a power which would enable us to do things that we otherwise could not do. These same people believe that certain ones have more God-power than others, and that the Truth can be copyrighted and restricted to personal interpretations.
So it is a healthy thing to know, and feel, that prayer cannot change God; that man is neither able to change God nor His Power, and that no teacher or leader has any power to make God do his bidding.
It is Wonderful – this revelation of the changelessness of God. That Changeless Principle of Life, to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken; eternal in the heavens (Consciousness), and which fadeth not away. Think of the assurance that immediately comes to you. A Changeless Power – eternal, always present in all ways, instantly available to any man, at any place; without words of formula, and without an intercessor.
When you have awakened, you will realize that prayer, treatment, words, affirmations, or thoughts are powerless to change the eternal nature of God. You will be glad to know this. You will be glad to discover that all these ideas are merely means of aligning one’s self with the Changeless Principle of Life.
Nothing you can do will hinder God, nor help Him. You can only hinder or help yourself. You may believe what you want to regarding God, but that will not make it so, any more than believing evil about a person, or place, or thing, makes that so.
The Power of God is beyond the measure of the human mind. It acts so unceasingly, so unfailingly, and with such precision, that it can be termed automatic. Certainly it is an Unconditioned Power, untrammeled and unlabored, and it is this very Power which many of us have believed we could make do our bidding. Of course, many will emphatically deny this, but that does not change the fact that most people have thought that prayer was either for the purpose of making God change His Mind, or for making something happen that would not have otherwise taken place.
Many of you have thought that until you “treated,” or prayed, or said words, that God remained static. You had, apparently, to generate the Power. I AM not accusing you of anything when I set this down on paper. It is never going to hurt you to be honest with yourself and confess your sins, and get rid of them. You were acting to the highest of your ability, but if it has not brought you a hundred per cent results in the fulfillment of the promises given to us by Jesus, then you had better look again into the promises and see where you stand.
One of the happiest discoveries you will make in this new awakening to the True use of prayer is that God is omni-active, whether you see it or not. He watching over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. The {Power is always active, automatically active, without hindrance or help from you, or any other person, organization, nation, or thing. Aren’t you glad? Even while the tired human mind is asleep, the power of God is automatically expressing.
What, then, is the use of prayer, or treatment, or affirmations? What, indeed, but the power to align us with the glorious fact that God, the eternal active Power of the Universe, can and does express in perfect and eternal harmony, to all those who align themselves with this Power. When I move with the current of the river, I have little resistance or hindrance; and so, when I align myself with God, and LET that mind be in me which was also in Christ Jesus, then the resistance to problems and beliefs passes away. It is Wonderful! “There remaineth a rest to the people of God.” The People of God are those who are LETTING God run His Universe, and who have come to believe that the omni-active Power of God is ever in manifestation.
“When ye pray” – and then the explicit instruction are given for true prayer: “Be still [do you know what still means?] and KNOW that I AM God.” Being still is not telling God of all your needs, and how they should be met. The Automatic Power is always expressing. It is Wonderful!
“I have a way that ye know not of” is the law of the Automatic Power, working through the intricate mass of human beliefs, moving unseen through the condition or situation you call hopeless, and arriving at a destination that was formerly considered impossible. “I have a way that ye know not of,” and that is the way of God. “God’s ways are past finding out.” Do you hear that no human mind can figure out how the power of God can accomplish what the human belief and intellect have long since found as impossible of accomplishment? “All things are possible to God,”
but do not forget that you are not the little person who controls God, and makes Him do your bidding, by saying words “at” Him. The Power which says, “Before they call, I will answer,” certainly must be fully aware of the whole thing, before you put it into words. It is Wonderful! The Power is ever willing and ready to be LET into manifestation.
The glorious sense of prayer is for the purpose of RECOGNIZING the Presence of God, and casting the human will away. “Not my will, but Thine, be done,” is like handing over limited human power to the Infinite Power of God. A tired child running alongside of an automobile, at the rate of five miles an hour, is suddenly picked up by the car, and carried on at a hundred miles an hour, while his body remains perfectly quiet. Do you get the idea of the futility of human struggle? “Cast thy burden [of belief] upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee” was the invitation given to you; and it is just this Recognition of the Presence that makes it possible for you to see the way, and to accomplish that which was impossible by yourself.
We cannot assist the Power in any way, except by following the laws laid down by Jesus: “Lean on Me.” While we sit quietly in the swift-moving auto, our body also attains the velocity of the car, without any effort on our part. The effortless action of God is here pictured forth. “I have a way that ye know not of.” It is Wonderful!
When you wish to speak to someone thousands of miles away, you turn the little dial of a telephone and presently you are in conversation with that one. It is marvelous what has taken place between the receiver of the telephone at one end and the transmitter at the other. All the automatic action which took place, is almost past understanding – to the average person at least. You sit comfortably at home, and all this unseen power has found your friend thousands of miles away, and put you in touch with him. Think of what you have been saved by this working of this automatic power. Think if you had to perform that operation yourself. It might take you days or weeks to make the journey to speak with your friend, which was done for you in a moment by the automatic connection. This is a poor illustration of the Power of God, but it gives some idea of the “way that ye know not of,” and how it can and will put you in touch with the “answer” to your problem.
“Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” The receiver is ready to receive the WORD. He is not telling God what to do. He has aligned himself with the God Power by his Recognition of the Presence of the Power. Yes, to such an extent that he says: “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” What is he going to hear? He will hear the Will of God spoken in his inner being, which will move him into the ways of peace and joy, and glorious Revelation.
Prayer is the Glorious Recognition of the Presence, and the letting go of the human desire. When you loose your life, you will find it. When you ally yourself with the God Power, and LET that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, then it can and does work in a “mysterious way.” We are beginning to understand why it is often mentioned that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and that God is terrible and fearful. These words are used because the human mind is lost in the amazing Power which works through beliefs, and overturns impossible things and comes back with the answer. It is almost terrible to contemplate the Power so grand, so overpowering is it in this automatic expression. “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and forget not all His benefits.” “Come unto ME all ye that labor and are heavy laden [with beliefs], and I will give you rest.” It is glorious to know that God is expressing always, and that He does not have to be started into action by your prayers. The moment that you pray aright you are moving with this Power, and you are learning to take your attention away from the appearance, for the appearance is what you have been hypnotized by all these long years. Nothing happens on the outside that must not first take place on the inside. “Be still, and know that I AM God.”
When you perceive the Power, when you pray aright the prayer of Recognition, then, “having done all,” you “stand and see the salvation of the Lord.” How will it come? It will come in the way all automatic power comes into expression – unhindered, unstopped by any combination of human beliefs, no matter how powerful they may appear to be. It is Wonderful!
When Marconi discovered, by his deep contemplation, the principle of wireless telegraphy, he knew that the world all about him “knew” that it was pure imagination. He looked out on a group of learned men who were ready to give the lie to this Recognition. He looked out on a world ready to “laugh him to scorn” because he said he could go against its best beliefs, but he stayed on the point of Recognition. He was “praying without ceasing”; he kept his attention away from appearances, and kept it fixed on the principle which he had seen in the secret place of the Most High. So presently he overturned a whole world of human knowledge. It is wonderful how Jesus gave us all these glorious laws of life. Do not judge any more from the appearance of your body, or your world. Go within and contemplate this Presence, and soon you will overturn a whole lifetime of human beliefs. “All things are possible to God.” Do you hear?
When Jesus said “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” they laughed at Him, and people are still laughing, and people are still “trying to make it appear.” But those who have eyes can see that He was, and is, true and just. His daring in going one step further, and locating the Kingdom of Heaven within you, was to completely undermine the very foundation of a time-honored religion, whose only claim to life was a lot of promises of heaven and happiness after death. But He said it, and so great were His understanding and Love that He was willing to prove it even unto the last enemy, so that we might see that “Every mortal mind is a liar and the father of it,” and that “Nothing is impossible to God.” It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful! “If I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there,” but not until you recognize this. The moment you recognize it, you are praying the prayer which will instantly release you, and put you into Heaven. It is this very Recognition of the Presence, and the staying on this point, disregarding the outward conditions, that has made this possible. It is Wonderful! Do you begin to see that “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” and that “He is mindful of his own”? His own are those who “Hear the voice,” and ally themselves with this glorious Power, and LET it operate through them.
“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is strong and mighty.” Recognize this fact, at stop looking at the world of unbelief, and the world of evidence to the contrary, and you will suddenly see your hell turn into Heaven. No wonder, then, you are told to “salute no man by the way.” If Marconi had saluted, or discussed his revelation with every man in the street, his glorious power to bring it out into expression would have waned. “Be still, and know that I AM God” – that which is told in secret “shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops.” Do you begin to see the NEW DAY dawning? It is glorious to know that you do not have to change the Mind nor the Will of God by prayer, but that your prayer can and will be just the true Recognition of the Presence here and NOW.
Think of Jesus saying, “The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.” What about all the testimony of the senses, and the human understanding? You begin to see what RECOGNITION of the Presence means. It is the Open Sesame to the King’s Treasures. It is Wonderful!
And you – yes, you. I speak to you. You, who are reading this very line; you can lay your book down, and turn in true prayer and RECOGNIZE this glorious Power. You can contemplate it, and listen for the instructions that are forthcoming right now, and you can arise and confirm it, and decree it, and stand and see it into expression. You are right now filled and thrilled by the down pouring of blessings that is pouring over you like great falls as I write these lines to you, so glad am I to speak to you direct. It is Wonderful! You are blessed, flooded with the Light of God, and your universe is aglow with the Light of Life, and your body is aglow with the Light of Life, and it is all in the dazzling White Light of the Presence. “Be still, and know that I AM God.” It is Wonderful! Blessings, blessings, blessings.
“Having done all,” stand and see. Having made your Recognition, stand by it, and take your attention away from appearances and verily “it shall come to pass” by a way, and in a manner, that ye know not of. From the moment the warmth of the mother bird penetrates the shell of the egg, something is happening, though nothing appears on the outside: and it is just this warmth of the God Love which you put into your Recognition that causes the constant leavening of the meal of belief to take place, even though nothing yet is appearing. It is Wonderful! Heaven and earth are full of THEE. “The heavens declare [do you hear?] the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” It is Wonderful – Praise God, sing Hosannas – or Recognition – write within your heart, “Not my will, but Thine, be done,” and let this glorious Will of Heaven – Here and Now manifested – take possession of you. When my will is Thy Will and Thy Will is my will, then the Will of God is being done; and the Will of God, through you, is that glorious individual expression of the Son of God.
“Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
The Second Coming is taking place. It is the Coming of the Consciousness which Recognizes the Omni-active Power of God, unchanged by the human thinking or ideas, and that has a greater mission in life than the working out of problems. Some time that problem-state must end, and the Revelation of the Power which is “of too pure eyes to behold iniquity” must be revealed. The Second Coming of the Christ “without sin unto salvation” is what we are looking for. The fulfillment of the promises of God, Here and NOW. It is Wonderful!
“I will stand upon my watch … to see what He will say unto me.”
He – that “Lord in the midst of thee” – has much to say to you when you are still, and are at the point of Recognition of the Presence. It is Wonderful! He shall call thee by a new name which no man shall utter – that is the name of Power and Expression.
AWAKE
“Wake! For the Sun who scattered into flight …..” might have been said by Jesus Christ instead of the Persian Omar. And so does he give us the picture of the spreading Dawn of Life. If you have ever been on the desert at sunrise, you will know what takes place. Suddenly, at the very edge of night a fine filament of light appears and it continues with almost a fierceness until it lays down a barrage of Light that literally shoots in a fan like shape across the dark sands and turns them into gold. Then does the Sun finally arise in all its majesty and words are futile – paints are futile – there is only one thing left to do: that is to RECOGNIZE it, and to behold it.
The coming of the Christ in you is exactly the same thing. We are in a new day. A day filled with illumination, and we begin the voyage of discovery. All that which lay obscure, or partially obscured by the nighttime of ignorant belief, suddenly appears in all its splendor. It is not created; it is revealed, and so is it with you. You become self revealed and find within yourself all those things you have looked for so long on the outside.
It all sounds like some new equation of the human mind, but this is something entirely different; this is self revelation which takes place by reason of the fact you have returned to the One and found reality. It is too good to be true – and too simple to operate. The giant fly-wheel of human knowledge which is foolishness in the eyes of God, keeps on describing its endless circle, and showing a power hard to defeat in the belief world – but like a thief in the night the awakening takes place, and through the tired eyes you begin to see the thin tracery of light on the midnight of human thought. It is wonderful.
The Command – “Awake” is given – and nothing happens for you do not hear.
Then, it suddenly breaks through, and from that moment it hurries along to the complete fulfillment of SELF discovery. “I can do all things through Christ Jesus” is not something to be “Demonstrated,” for man discovers he is through with the false idea that he can “demonstrate God.” He has discovered that God demonstrates him – or shows forth those qualities which are unattainable by human thought. It is so simple it is difficult for the human intellect has discovered in its limited three dimensional world that it cannot be done – and it cannot – because it is already done. When you come to the elevation of “Look again,” then the revelation takes place – not symbolically this time, but actually, and there is no limit to this projection. It is wonderful – filled with wonder.
When you discover LIFE, you are through with the limited concept of it which you call health – that bit of life which you have shut up in your body starts going down almost from the moment it begins. When I would do good, evil is present with me is a sample of the law of the human mind which is separated from the One.
Awake – o not try to awake, but just awake as you do in the morning after a heavy sleep. Gradually you come to the surface of the lethal waters of sleep – and open your eyes and see. No illustration is worth much, but a faint idea of the majesty of the Power begins to come forth.
So, do you begin to understand somewhat the Free Oneness of which the Oriental of High degree speaks. You are told to Live, and move and breathe and have your being in this One – and at the same time it lives, moves and breathes and has its being in you – and then the new degree of illumination takes place – Pure Revelation.
For a long time you imagined you could control God and to some extent it seemed as if you were successful, but gradually you See that your activity is finished when you Pray and Believe. At this elevation you are inactive, and the Power takes over and is able to bring into full-fledged reality all the laws laid down for you, and so can you “do all things” not some – but ALL things through this mingling of the Power – the spirit with matter – lifting it into a New substance, a substance which acts as the place where things appear.
You cannot do this if you try, or if you affirm. If affirmations had been actually effective, the whole world would have been changed lo! these many years.
Free Oneness is the gift of living in the world and not of it. It is so necessary you understand this Law today for the world is at a point of chaos as most people recognize.
So does the blare of the trumpets at the gates of dawn sound forth, and the shades of the long night give way to the prancing steeds of the chariot of the Sun, and out he rides in all his glory casting the light everywhere, transforming the whole earth into a place of revelation.
AWAKE!
B.C. AND B.J.
Attention is called to the fact that there is no such period as B.C. (Before Christ), for the simple reason that “Before Abraham was, I AM.” The Christ has always existed, and there is no date before that, for it is before the human, relative sense of time existed. There is , as has been brought to light, B.J. (Before Jesus, which gives us a date some two thousand years ago. So is it with you – the real you – the Christ of God. The Son of the Living God does not come under the relativity of time for there never was a beginning or ending to the birth less, ageless, deathless Christ in you, whose measure of time is eternity and is therefore above all the ravages of time and the dangers ensuing there from.
Your Jesus, John Smith, or whatever you call yourself, has only existed for a limited number of years – it has gone through the experiences of the Master in varying degrees, and has been crucified. It is the only thing that could be crucified. The Christ of you could never be pierced – nailed to a tree, slandered, maligned, or hurt; this is only possible of Jesus, and for this reason the Master saw the fallacy of trying to do anything from the Jesus state of mind. It was a constant fight from cradle to tomb hence his discovery, and priceless gift of wisdom to the universe! ‘I [Jesus] of myself can do nothing – but —.’ Knowing that the Jesus was but the shadow of the soul, and realizing to become prodigal was to suffer all the limitations of the belief, he advised against considering the Jesus. He counseled the student to go within, saying ‘If I [the I AM] be lifted up [to at-one-ment with the ALL], then I shall draw all an man-I-festation unto me.’
Do not call me good – speaking of Jesus with the limitations of a belief man – a man of certain strength, of certain health, of certain limited earning capacity. Many people are today sitting in the seats of the scornful, calling the world to view their intense spirituality – shouting from the housetops, “Come and look at my wonderful power, and view my elegant family. We are all workers for the Lord – we are the only ordained ones; come to us for spirituality; all others are liars and cheats.” It is though the Master had never lived and given to the world the simplicity of the Kingdom here and now.
“You deny Me” – you deny the statements of Christ because you cannot see them. Your eyes are holden because they are loaded with the blindness of your John Smith. “You deny Me” – you read My words that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, and straight away make Me out a liar by trying to prove that the world is full of evil that you are a special one sent to destroy. ‘I do not come to destroy but to fulfil’ – I, and the I AM of you, do not come to destroy; it comes to fulfil – fill full everything that is empty, every vessel in the human conscious of your Jesus is poured full to overflowing with the substance of the Christ Mind, and you are found not wanting in anything.
It seems to good to be true that the Kingdom of Heaven is here and now, and that it can not be brought into visibility by long sermons of so-called holy people. No man can bring in your Kingdom of Heaven. It rests with you whether you will continue to make Jesus a liar or a truth-sayer – whether you believe that his saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,’ is the truth or a lie. You take this magnificent wisdom and extract a grain of truth – perhaps you have to run to someone else to find out what he believes about it, and get turned awry by personal teaching, teaching crammed full of personality.
It is quite easy to understand the limitations of Jesus. He was of lowly birth, no breeding, no special talent, no education, no money – ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son?’ What good can come out of a dirty little town in Judea? Theses are the questions which immediately beset the personality, and to which the personality, or Jesus. must answer, ‘I am Jesus; I am a carpenter; my parents are poor; I have no education; I had no chance; my earning capacity is that of a day labourer.’ Whereupon Jesus is assigned to his proper place in the human category.
What hope is there for you, as you stand today? The soul of you my burn with an ardour too intense for words, and yet, because you keep on admitting and recognizing yourself as John Smith, you go under the limitation of that personality. It is only very occasionally that you perceive the light, and at such times you exclaim with great joy, ‘I have had a demonstration” you have had a demonstration of the Christ of you, which should be in constant manifestation. Presently you will tire of the great desert spaces between demonstrations, and arrive at a place where you will open the door to the real you and see every limitation of the personality broken.
The Master showed clearly that, while Jesus could only be a carpenter. the Christ (which he explained was common to every man) could transcend with natural ease every limitation to which the Jesus was subject. In other words, he found it true that ‘if ye be in the Spirit ye are no more under the law”; that is, if you identify yourself with the I AM the Christ-consciousness – not as something unusual or something to be used against evil, but as your real True Self which is above the beliefs of the limited Jesus, you will begin to function on a plane of attainment – a place of fulfilment. It is not the overcomer – it is that which comes over. The more unconsciously the processes of life become, the more perfect they are; hence the difference between the baby crawling on the floor and a man flying through the air – he has come through all the stages and has forgotten them, having taken, not the letter or labour of it all, but the wisdom which lay there. The reason a baby can finally learn to walk is that it has the ability always there, awaiting recognition. The moment it is recognized it either accepts it or fails to see it as a possibility.
This is the order of the human education – that a man must study years and years to be able to lecture and teach; yet we find the man Jesus, through his understanding of the Christ, lecturing in the temple before the wise and learned. How could this possibly be? He had no training. You belong to one or the other of two classes – ‘You say it is four months” – ‘I say look again.’ A chorus of voices protest with the usual ‘Yes but —‘ and they must wait for the four months; but the other one will thrust in the sickle, for the word is, “The fields are white” now: not at some other time.
When the inspiration says, “You do not need to think what you will say – open your mouth and I will supply the words,” who are you, with your human intellect, to go against the magnificent truth’ Even though you may have all the degrees that mankind can bestow upon you, who are you to dare to deny ME, the I AM, and try to impose the foolish wisdom that you have been prating for years, and your stupid arguments that you have amassed from the human appearances? Either you can accept the inspired word of Christ or you are going to argue. If you argue it is because you have never heard. Either God can do it or it cannot be done – and neither you nor ten thousand of your kind, with a million proofs of the human belief, can offset one letter of the truth.
‘Yes, but that was Jesus,” is one of the old sayings, one of the old arguments to excuse ourselves from getting rid of the human personality, with its limitations and beliefs. Jesus said, in speaking of the Christ Mind, which I repeat is common to every man: “The works that I do ye shall do also, and even greater works than these shall ye do.’ Is this a lie? You have to answer that for yourself. When you can, you will also see that the veil is rent, and that all that is left is for you to make a clear decision as to whether or not you are willing and ready to be born again.
If you want the Christ only as a demonstrating power, so that you may stand and make long speeches about what a wonderful power you have, and recount all the wonders that you have done, then you will have little of it. If you want it because you see the glorious realm of the Sons of the Living God, then the doors will burst asunder and you will know that nothing which has gone before matters – you will be instantly freed into the limitless sea of substance – you will hear the command and obey. ‘Come, eat and drink without money and without price’ – the password for attainment is yours simply for the recognition of this Christ within, as YOU.
Some will stand and wait for a sign. No sign shall be given; you have already had the sign – I AM, and I AM in my heaven right here and now, will make the hell that John Smith is in, no matter however involved, melt away right before your eyes, both literally and figuratively, into the effulgence and radiance of the Kingdom of Heaven. “Oh, taste and Beloved, the words are true, and you will see that all this straining to do the works of God has passed away into the place of actually expressing the power without effort. Effortlessly, it comes into expression – at that point to decree a thing is to see it into manifestation. WHO are YOU? And to what end were you born? Do you think life is meant to be a constant fight, a constant study of dead letter? Will it ever mean to you the here and the now of what your soul knows to be true?
We see, further, this exemplar Jesus, weighing average weight, walking on the water – an utter impossibility; we see him setting aside the human laws of weather. How could a carpenter do either of these? It is interesting to note these from the actual and figurative points of view. Spirit has no weight – hence it is heavier than nothing. Weight belongs to the human reasoning, which it constantly overturns. Not so long ago they insisted that a body heavier than water would sink, but a piece of iron or steel in fact a mass of steel much heavier than water – is made to float in the shape of a ship, and nothing is thought of it. Hence one by one the old beliefs give way. That which at one time is said to be impossible becomes reasonable when it has to be accepted, and is incorporated into the beliefs.
When you recognize that Now in the Golden Here you are the Son of the Living God, you will hear the clatter of the scaffolding of human beliefs and teachings crashing to the ground in order that the New Idea, the perfect Mansion, can be made visible. We have mistaken ourselves – we have failed to let go of the scaffolding, and the glorious Christ man is still hidden under the letter of the human teaching. We have even tried our best to make this scaffolding look like the Christ, and doctored and treated it and tried in every way to better it. “you must decrease – I most increase’ is the law; the human personality, the Jesus of John Smith, decrease by being lifted up to the recognition of its True Self, and it is then said of you, “How does this man speak with such wisdom – seeing he has no learning?’ You find the way, for I AM the way, and I have a way that ye (the human reasoning) know nothing of.
A serenity comes to you – a peace that passeth all – a glory of rest which belongs to the Sons of God – not inactivity, but a joyous rest from all the struggle and strife to please a tyrant, a God of likes and dislikes, a God that you have set up for yourself, which you have chopped out of a tree, and fashioned with gold and tinsel, and then fallen down and feared. You shall come out into the place of attainment – not attainment for worldly show, but the secret attainment. You shall pass a man on the highway, and, by speaking to him silently or openly, shall heal him, and he shall know you as a nameless being – the Christ – instead of lauding a personal name to the skies. You shall go your way, for the doors of the universe shall be open to you. ‘I [the Christ] go before you [John Smith] and make straight the way. Do you hear? You, I mean, YOU who at this instant are reading these lines. I said ‘I’ (the inner Lord – your inner Lord) go before you and make straight the way.’ Believest thou this? Surely not from the appearances. The sick body, the depleted vitality, and empty purse, all are symbols of that to which human limitations can come.
Be still! If you cannot accept the truth, be still; do not argue; if you cannot hear me as I speak to you NOW, then open My holy book, any book, and let me speak to you. The time will come when you will hear My voice, because you will recognize that it is the only voice possible for the Christ Mind to hear. The jabbering of doctrines as mine and thine – the puffed up personalities who make it a business to cast stones and screech from the pulpits, “God is love’ – that is, if you see it exactly as I do – shall be naught but the distant chirping of so many insects as against the roar of the thunder in the Heavens. You hear because you believe it is possible for the Son of God (YOU) to hear – and only because of that.
“Who did hinder you?’ Well, one person told me one thing and another told me something else, and I was confused. If you have been confused by the avalanche of teaching of the Christ, why do you continue to seek among the husks any longer? Why do you not cease from the classrooms of the human mind and enter into the courts of the Lord? You and you alone will be the one to rise and go to your Father. No matter what you know about it, until you BELIEVE the inspired word as possible here and now, you will never see or hear it. You may catch fleeting glimpses of it, but you will not know the joy of living, moving, and having your being in the ALL GOD – the Joy of Eternity, the Being that does not date itself, but is and always IS.
Before the Sandman Comes
DID you ever invite the Sandman over to see you and have him turn you down? Or have you ever woke up in the night and found that half a dozen long, never-ending, black hours were awaiting you before morning would come? I know you have, and I know that sometimes you have tried that old trick of self-hypnotism of counting the sheep as they went over the fence and found that it, too, failed; and at last in sheer despair you have tossed and tumbled about and mentally flayed yourself into a state of absolute fatigue. Did you know that there was a sure and direct way leading into Slumberland? – – so easy to travel, so inviting and interesting; strewn along the way with drowsy, nodding poppies and heavy-scented white lilies, and ever so often a nodding little sleepy-head child and cuddled up so comfy and securely in its mother’s arms, and presently such a happy, snuggly feeling comes to you that you let go and tumble off the cliff of dreams into the land of forgetfulness. Let me show you that road.
When you wake, always remember that “I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness,” and what is that likeness? One of its attributes is “Love,” so we will start with that. “When I awake in Thy (Love’s) likeness I shall be satisfied.” You are already awake in an atmosphere of Love, for “In Him you live and move and have your being.” Now the way to bring this Love into your mind is to put it into use – – start loving – – and to do this you begin forgiving. Forgive Mr. X – – that little resentment which you hold against him, and Mrs. Blank the hurt that you received from her words. Take them by the hand and lead them out “Through green pastures” and “Beside still waters.” Say to them, “I forgive you; I have nothing in my heart against you – – nothing in my heart against anybody, for I love the whole world.” Such a feeling will come to you – – such a contented, peaceful feeling, and you will be all aglow with the flame of real Love; and finally, as you go on your way forgiving you will come to your own poor self standing there – – that poor old dear which you have so hatefully accused of all sorts of wrongs, of sickness, sin and death. You have fastened all these things on it, and it needs to be forgiven, too. “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” Now you have loosed everything, even your own self, and no wonder you lie there and radiate and radiate love.
And at last as you ponder on the wonders of Love and the thrill of forgiveness, you will feel the soft feathers of His wings folding about you. They will hover over you and the “Everlasting arms” with your head snugly nestled against your Father’s breast you will be borne off into that haven of rest – – and shall arise therefrom, glowing with newness of life and purpose.
And so the next time the Sandman won’t come to see you, you try this plan of forgiving the whole world and see if a sweeter sense of peace does not come to you than you have ever experienced before. A tired and wornout soldier boy tried this on dark night when it seemed that the enemy was pretty thick and that they were pretty near and were doing their best to keep him awake, but when he walked with them through green pastures and beside still waters, and when he “anointed their heads with the oil of forgiveness,” the noise, and the unrest and fear all faded away and he went over the cliff of dreamland.
BEHOLD! – WHAT MANNER OF LOVE
“BEHOLD! what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” Suddenly the light of revelation breaks through the clouds of human belief. The “BEHOLD,” as we see it here, is a command to look upon something. There is no element of trying to change or make, or shape things into a new and different pattern. There is no calling forth of the human powers or capacities to argue or to think something into a new light or place. The command is “BEHOLD.” “BEHOLD.” Look upon, recognize, see, and perceive something that actually exists. “BEHOLD” – something that is already in existence and does not have to be coaxed into the picture by thought. As a man in a dark room, feeling his way about, suddenly touches the electric switch. He does not alter anything in the room; he does not make anything; he does not add anything nor take anything away, yet suddenly everything is changed. “In the twinkling of an eye” everything has been changed for him, and yet nothing has been changed. The things which acted as ugly stumbling-blocks in the darkness of the room are found to be most useful and beautiful. Everything is in harmony, which before seemed to be naught but evil to his darkened vision. This command
“BEHOLD” is somewhat the same idea. It is the capacity to “look again” referred to by the Prophet when the appearances seemed to be so fearful to the servant. It is the capacity of revelation, instant and glorious. Coming into alignment with the idea back of the command “BEHOLD” causes one to become aware of that which eternally has been, and which has been veiled from the eyes because of the human belief; because of the thick veils put before the eyes by accepting the human reasoning and appearances as real and true. “BEHOLD” is an insistent command. No one can do it for you. You cannot see it through the eyes of another. You can only suppose that it is so, but you will have to come up and up and up, to the point where you can stand at the level of the “BEHOLD.” It is something that transcends the thought process of trying to make it happen, and easily slips into the swiftly moving stream of life and recognition. HERE and NOW it all IS, and yet here and now nothing but discord seems to exist, to the human senses. “BEHOLD” – look upon it. It is not a call to you for help, nor yet for cooperation or assistance. It is a direct invitation to “Look again,” and see that whereas the fields had hardly been planted, they are now “WHITE,” and the laborers are few. There are few who will take to the high road of “BEHOLD,” because they stop to salute too many men along the way, and exchange too many opinions. They will find plenty of confirmation of any doubt they may have, and plenty of so-called “help” which will be but a temporary salve rubbed on the outside, which will perhaps ameliorate for a moment the torturing disease within, but which can never cure it.
“BEHOLD” – it is something that is done alone, and at a moment you think not. It is brought about by the contemplation of a possibility. The RECOGNITION of the God-universe in counter-distinction to the changing, chaotic thing created by man. The mind that has made this Recognition is then at the “watch.” Not a conscious watching, and looking for signs and wonders, but unconsciously it has Recognized and accepted The Presence, and is “waiting on the Lord,” regardless of what has seemed to take place in the world of things. It is the mind that is “standing in the innermost sanctuary,” unmoved, unafraid, and calm. “In a moment ye think not,” “I” come into expression.
After you have accepted the fact that there is an OMNI-PRESENCE, then the eyes that were “holden” are freed, and they “BEHOLD.” They “BEHOLD” the glory of the only begotten of the Father. It is Wonderful! It is the gift of every man and not a limited few. It is not brought about by years of study. It is given freely to the consciousness that can become as a little child and BELIEVE that GOD IS.
The old ideas are fast falling away. Veils are being rent and the eyes are beginning to “BEHOLD.” Whenever anyone has come to the place of “BEHOLD” he has manifested that which has been called a miracle; yet in reality he has only glimpsed that which has eternally existed. No law of God was set into motion especially for him. The Law was, and is, eternally in operation. What he did was to get into alignment with it, and it functioned as it eternally has functioned into perfection. To the limited human concept it seemed that something happened in the nature of a special dispensation, but it was merely the natural action of the Law of God. The one who is out of step with the regiment may yet be walking in time to the music he hears, but he will constantly feel the discord of the great rhythmic beat, to which he does not belong, and yet to which he is so strangely attached. He moves forward, but always at cross purposes. Let him “behold,” as it were, the rhythm, and he immediately falls into the swing of it, and is carried on by it, and enjoys the strength of the great volume of it moving forward. It is something like that with man and God. All the difficulties are from the action of man, independent of God. Finally man is defeated, and drops out.
“BEHOLD! what manner of Love!” You are not going to create it, nor make it. You are not going to help it be born. You are going to “BEHOLD what MANNER of LOVE.” It is Wonderful!
When a man comes to the Grand Canyon in Arizona for the first time, he stands silent, and almost breathless; he finds no words; he actually has no thoughts sufficiently large with which to express the beauty of it all; he is then in the state of “BEHOLD.” He is perceiving things as they are, and not as he is going to make them, nor yet as he may imagine them. They are as they are, and they are so far above anything he has ever thought or imagined that he can only look and “BEHOLD.”
When you “BEHOLD” that the Presence is HERE and NOW, the same thing takes place in you. Whereas before you perceived sickness, you see the impossibility of the manifestation of God to be sick. You “Behold” something that transcends health and which goes on into the radiant thing called “LIFE” – life unmarred or untouched by the human thought and its dreams of yesterday. All the petty thoughts that you have held about making God do your bidding, by telling Him what to do, drop by the way, in this new light of revelation, and you “BEHOLD.” You “BEHOLD” that which is, and the world will say, if you have been desperately ill. “He had a wonderful demonstration”; and so it is, to the human sense. I have no quarrel with this language. The Power that has come into manifestation in you in a demonstration, does not suddenly cease; it is continuous and eternal, and so is the outflowing of substance. Many people make what is known as a financial demonstration, only to presently lapse again into a worse state of poverty. That is because they have “Beheld” only the manifestation, and not the Power back of it. They have grasped at the shadow, and let go of the substance, and they have nothing but the memory of it all. It is Wonderful!
“BEHOLD! what manner of Love.” Do you hear the command? It is made to you – yes, to you who have been trying so long to make God change some ugly or undesirable condition or thing in your life. “BEHOLD [gaze upon, recognize] what manner of Love.” Even as the man, filled with wonder at the beauty of the Canyon, stands speechless at the magnificence of it all, which so far transcends any expectations that he had, so you are invited to “BEHOLD” the manner of Love, which has been bestowed upon you, and which likewise so far transcends anything you have ever planned, or thought about, or imagined. “My ways are not your ways”; no matter how high and mighty your ways might have been, no matter if you are recognized as the most advanced person in your line – even then, “My ways are not your ways.”
The manner of Love that is referred to is not the manner of Love that you have imagined as due to you for your good works or words. It is something that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard,” and something that has not entered into the heart of any man – it is the “Glory” that God has prepared for those who LOVE HIM. And those who LOVE HIM are those who are beginning to acknowledge HIM as HERE NOW, and who have ceased from the foolishness of trying to make God do as they say; and from the vain imagining that He is moved by words to carry out their ideas and plans. It is Wonderful!
“BEHOLD! what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” Do you hear? Do you see? It says that it has already been “BESTOWED” upon us. It is not something we have to win, or earn or beg for, or demonstrate. It is something that has already been “BESTOWED” upon us; already been given to you – yes, you. Aren’t you glad? Can you be still and “BEHOLD,” deep in the soul of you, this glory, as of the ONLY begotten of the Father, filled with Grace and Peace? Yes, even though the waves of human emotion and belief are tossing your craft about like an egg-shell in a tempest. It is Wonderful! It has already been BESTOWED upon you, and no man can take that heritage from you without your consent.
You may have sold this precious birthright for the mess of pottage of human belief in systems and methods of making God do wonders, but the moment you awaken from this sleep you will arise, and “BEHOLD, I make all things NEW” – make them NEW to the deadened senses which have been so long hypnotized by human reasoning and beliefs. The temple is cleansed of the money-changers, and the hecklers, and augurs, and the place is filled with the LIGHT of the one who is “BEHOLDING” what manner of Love. It is enough to make you speechless and breathless with wonder. It so far exceeds the expectations and the wildest dreams. It is so marvelous – the Manner and Nature of this LOVE which is already “BESTOWED” upon you. Yes, you.
The Manner of Love – the radiance of it – the fondest dream fulfilled and made possible – the glorious Revelation of the new dimension. “Behold, I make all things NEW” – the Heaven descending out of the clouds, and transforming, and yet at the same time only revealing that which has eternally been. The Heaven which Jesus said was within – a state of consciousness – suddenly descending on to the earth, or becoming manifest. The “Word becomes flesh.” Invisible glory concreted into the flesh, so heaven and earth are one, and the double standard or idea of life is swept away in the light that spreads over all. “BEHOLD! what MANNER of LOVE the Father hath bestowed upon us.” The NOW of it all comes into being. No matter how long you have worked, or prayed, or waited. The “NOW is the DAY” becomes a reality, and you are standing in the very same place which seemed so accursed, only to find it is hallowed ground.
“BEHOLD” – stand still, and see the salvation of this magic word become flesh. The Transformation of the world from Darkness into Light is only the Revelation of that which has always existed; and so the Revelation that takes place in you, and becomes flesh, is that which has eternally been flesh and which was only veiled from your eyes, because you accepted that as real which you perceived through the darkened glasses of the human belief. It is Wonderful! The darkened glasses being removed from your eyes, you perceive the world in its glorious color and beauty; yet nothing has happened to the world. So it is with the universe of God. Nothing is happening to the perfect universe, created and made by God – called good – and which is awaiting the moment when the Son will arise and go to the Fatherhood degree, and “BEHOLD what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” “Look again” in the confidence of the Presence, and you too will BEHOLD what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon you. The thing will speak for itself, and you will not have to broadcast it. The letting of the Light through into expression will give the Glory to God, and will cause all men to realize that this wonderful Revelation is something more than talk. It is Wonderful! Be still. “BEHOLD, I make all things new” – the eyes of the disciples are suddenly opened to the fact that they are breaking bread with the one they thought they saw crucified, dead, and buried. They had to “look again,” as it were, before they could see. The mist of human belief was thick before there eyes. The human testimony was strong, as it was in the case of Lazarus; yea, strong as it is in the case of you. But it is never strong enough to withstand the glorious inrush of Light and Revelation which takes place when you “BEHOLD! WHAT MANNER OF LOVE the FATHER HATH BESTOWED UPON US.”
No matter what the condition or belief, it will all melt away before this Recognition of the Presence. It is Wonderful!
Remember, it has ALREADY been BESTOWED upon you, no matter what the appearances are; no matter how many argue to the contrary. It has already been BESTOWED upon you, no matter who you are, or where you are. This priceless gift is yours NOW. It does not have to be won. It has to be accepted. Can one come to you, then, and say, “Yes, I know, but – ” and take from you this priceless gift? No; he can only blind you by words, but you are still in possession of the gift, and the moment you turn from “man whose breath is in his nostrils” you will “BEHOLD” the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Do you see? Do you hear? Do you begin to feel the presence of this power, independent from every system, or sect, or creed, that was ever established? “In the twinkling of an eye” it shall all be changed. The moment you come to BEHOLD you will perceive it.
“BEHOLD WHAT MANNER.” It is so wonderful, so full, so beyond words and imagination, the MANNER of this Love. The hard fight for life, health, and success is over. All the glorious manifestation you have sought for years is wrapped up in the MANNER of LOVE which has already been BESTOWED upon you. It seems to be lying dormant until you awaken it, but in reality you are lying dormant, dreaming the most hideous nightmares of belief, until you awaken to the reality of your Divine Heritage, and “BEHOLD” the beauty and holiness of it all. It is Wonderful! Arise and shine; you are a being of light, in a universe of Light and you are filled with Light and Inspiration of the ALMIGHTY. It is Wonderful! The MANNER of LOVE that is yours – the measure of Love that is yours – the infinite and joyous expression that is yours, for You have been CALLED into expression as the Son of the Living God. The manifestation has been called forth into expression. It is Wonderful!
“BEHOLD, what MANNER of LOVE the Father HATH BESTOWED UPON us.” It is Wonderful! And So It is.
It is as if the door to a secret cave suddenly opened and revealed the hidden beauties of the earth – as if a searchlight were suddenly turned into a treasure cave filled with precious gems, hidden away in the dark. It is as if the walls of a dungeon suddenly fell away, and revealed the glory of a tropical landscape to the half-starved, half-frozen inmates. It is as if the shell that bound a full-grown bird suddenly broke away.
“BEHOLD! what manner of Love the Father hath BESTOWED upon us” – upon you and me – here and now. It is Wonderful!
BELIEVEST THOU THIS?
“Whom do men say that I am?” Some say one thing, some another — some may consider you a religious bigot, a holier-than-thou, a thief, a liar. It makes little difference what answer is made to that question; but the answer to another question determines your place in the grand scheme of heaven here and now — “But whom do you say that I AM?”
Whom do you say that I AM? — you, yourself — what do you say of your I AM? Do you say that it is the miserable worm of the dust that needs constantly to be treated? led and helped? Or is it the creation of the Living God? When will you answer, “I AM the Son of the Living God,” and proceed to reveal this Man of God to the universe here and now? In a moment you think not — when the seemingly ceaseless thinking about how to make God do your bidding stops — at that moment the Christ comes into manifestation. Not much Christ- consciousness or power can penetrate the layers of human thought, which form an insulation about you. Reasoning about God does not make him any more visible than he is already. “No man shall see God and live” is pared off with the statement, “In my flesh shall I see God.” In the realm of the human intellect little or no wisdom is seen — a strange chain of coincidences hooks a train of cars together, each with its load of thought and care. There is to the human mind little actual reason for man being here. He has often asked himself “Whither?” and “Why?” — and these go unanswered, and he finds that man’s days are full of trouble. A lovely picture for a God creation, to be sure! Ah, but when he takes his attention away from appearances, and can answer himself, “You are the Son of the Living God,” the whole fabric of hell breaks through and the heavenly light of self-revelation shines out here and now into expression. Man finds himself clear-seeing, clear-hearing, clear-speaking, revealing the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, appropriating the good and passing it on to the universe. He finds new and lovelier capacities. He perceives himself to be the Son of the Most High, with dominion and authority. He finds himself in affluence. He finds the glory of self-expression here and now. A thousand avenues open before him. He finds it wonderful. The consciousness is deepened and made more receptive — made ready for the things I could not tell you back in Jerusalem because you could not have borne the glory of it all. The eyes are aware of a new and lovely universe here and now, peopled with angelic beings instead of fiends incarnate. Who do you say that I AM? What are the capacities? And no wonder it was given to the child! The child would automatically answer “yes” to “Believest thou this?” — but the adult, wise in his own conceit, tried to reason it out. He says he would like to, but his eyes are so hypnotized to evil that he cannot. That is why the Christ has said, “Take your attention away from appearances, and rest it on the Isness of Being.” “Judge not from appearances, but judge righteous judgment” — the judgment of the Son of God.
Can you believe that it is possible for the perfect health you have sought so long to be manifested in you now? I did not ask whether you desired it or wanted it; I asked whether you could believe that it is possible. The subtle word contains the connecting-link of manifestation — it is the way through which the unseen suddenly becomes seen. The visible- invisible appears. “Believest thou this?” was asked over and over by Jesus, and when the answer was, “Yea, yea, Lord,” the results were sure to follow. Just what do you believe? Many people know the letter of truth perfectly, but are not healed. I may have at my command the whole technique of play-writing, and be but a critic, with no ability whatsoever to write even a small scene. You may know a hundred systems of truth, but that does not make you a revelator of the Kingdom — no, not until you believe it is possible. Not until you get over the emotional worship of Jesus, and “go thou and do likewise,” can you ever know the beauty of the Kingdom here and now. When you sit down to have your quiet time of contemplation, and are done with the insane idea of trying to make God do your bidding, or of following some words rattled off by some other person — then you will ask yourself, “Believest thou this?” And when you can say, “Yea, Lord,” within yourself, the manifestation is as good as into visibility. Believest thou this?
The Blaze of Life
“THE Lord in the midst of thee is strong and mighty” – the Lord, the Power, the Life, in the midst of the burning bush which blazes forth and yet which consumes not – which at the same time consumes that which is not – is strong and mighty. The Blaze of Life which you have heretofore thought of as a destroying flame proves to be a dazzling white light which shows the nothingness of that which it formerly seemed to consume.
There is nothing in the Kingdom of Heaven that needs to be destroyed. A seed that has expanded through the time and space belief of the human thinking has not been destroyed, but fulfilled. The grub that, through the slow motion of time and space thinking, becomes a ‘butterfly, is not destroyed, but fulfilled. So you will find that you have not great areas of evil in your mind and life to be destroyed; but vast amounts of unreleased joy, happiness, and expression to be set free.
As long as the eye is double you are a believer in hell – a purifying fire which is to consume something which you promptly say is nothing. What kind of mental gymnastics is this? You may say that you can prove that it has to be destroyed – you can cite Scripture to that end – but, having the double eye of good and evil, you have never yet read the real Scriptures.
The Blaze of Life within you, if misinterpreted, may cause you to commit that which is designated evil. A bank robber’s original idea is good. He desires to inherit the substance of mind, expressed in the symbols of the workaday world; but his interpretation is bad. Immediately upon receipt of the desire to possess substance he translates it into terms of his limited universe. He finds it impossible to attain in any of the legitimate avenues, and so he proceeds to break human law in order to obtain it. His wanting the substance is not wrong; where he falls down is in looking to the appearances, and finding them limiting and impossible, accepts them as real and attempts to set them aside.
The first tendency of man, after he has felt the urge of the oncoming good in his life, is to look out in the world of illusion and see the limitations that are about him. He immediately judges – decides whether it is possible or not – whether it is reasonable or not. If he finds it reasonable with the human understanding, he proceeds to bring it into manifestation by human channels; but, if not, he may turn criminal and attempt to produce it that way.
No wonder, then, that the Master said, “Judge not from appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” If you are looking to the appearances of the human life, almost anything is impossible, because it is subject to chance, destiny, fate, or what you will. When man learns that the life within the temple, body (embodiment), is a Blaze of Life, he will be able to see with this Blaze past the human barriers, of whatever nature they may be, and perceive the object of his desire in full manifestation.
Judging righteous judgment is accepting the words of the Inner Lord, “Before ye ask I will answer, and while ye are yet speaking I will give it unto you.” Is this so, or is it a lie? Answer – you who read this page. Are you still playing with words? Do you still reel off metaphysical statements, and find your coffers empty and your life cold and unexpressed? I am the Blaze of Life. Can you see how the light of this Blaze can search the joints and marrow, and how the stupid repetition of words will fall like shadows on snow? Can you see what “Be still and know” will do for you, instead of rushing about to find a healer or teacher – or copying a statement down out of a book or a lecture to repeat a thousand times?
Can you see what the Blaze of Life will do for you? It is sharper than a two-edged sword. It catches you eventually as you ride along on the way to Damascus, all proud of your attainment – you, the official stone-caster – you, the consecrated one. Is one more consecrated than another? Are not all of the same substance of life? Is not the Blaze of Life in every man who will turn within and find it?
So wonderful, that Blaze of Life within you which is the perfect expression of your True Self. Without Life and Light there is no expression – other than this it is but a borrowed light, a flicker on the mirror of the human mind. The Blaze of Life within you is that White Dazzling Light which illumines all you say; the most commonplace words become alive and full of fire – the most ordinary events become great way markers on the path of the new pilgrim. You, even though you be a simple carpenter or tender of sheep, will with this light find the gates of the King’s palace flung wide open to you. You, though you be a fine nobleman, shall find the Blaze of Life dispelling the hateful bondage of a poseur. Your fatigue of always keeping up a pretense shall cease, and you shall find quiet and peace, and pearls and rubies shall drop from your lips rather than the hard worthless gold which formerly bought you nothing but the fawning of monkeys.
You, with the picture of your self-expression hidden away in the shadows of limitation, shall suddenly find it illumined by the Blaze of Life – it will become alive and active, and, strange as it may seem, you will find that all the waiting you have done will have amounted to nothing – you shall take up the expression at that point which will cause you to know that nothing has been lost – not even time. O glorious Blaze of Life, that looks through everything, and sees the Reality of Being – the Now of Life and Light.
The halo is not something projected by supernatural vibrations, but a perfectly natural emanation of light which escapes and is visible even to the eyes of the double minded. He wishes to fall down and worship Jesus, and gets the stern rebuke, “Call not me good.” Seeing this emanation in terms of success and joyous abandon, the human mind tries to flatter it and fails – tries to destroy it by every way and means he can contrive, and fails. Might he as well try to destroy the light of the sun by thrusting a sword into it, as to destroy the Blaze of Life which proceeds from the I AM within – the soul who has awakened to his true identity.
As light consumes darkness and yet does not consume it, so the Blaze of Life consumes the darkness of human thinking, and the glorious Divine indifference to appearances from this height always brings results. The sick are healed and the poor are fed and the good spell (gospel) is preached without any conscious effort. What is all this worry and flurry about making the world good and getting rid of evil? You can only get rid of that which is within yourself. Perhaps you do not like this – more than likely you are one of the consecrated ones, one of the appointed ones – but remember, I stood not in pulpits, but in the stable, and was associated with those you called harlots, wine-bibbers, and sinners. Remember that I AM not any more in your holy churches, with all their rules and regulations of who and why, than I AM in the lowest dive. Dare you to deny this? Then you dare to say to Me that I AM not omnipresent. You dare to say that I AM more present because of you and your chattering words or your idle thought about making Me appear. You shall see in good time.
I AM the Blaze of Life within you – I give life to the dead and dying by recognizing the eternality of life – I AM that which can again establish the Lazarus, even though to all the human reasoning it is impossible. I AM the Doer of the Impossible – I AM the one and only expresser – and I do not find it exciting or miraculous that my good should come into manifestation without effort. I AM effortless, like the light breaking across the skies of night – your skies of night. Even as you read this I AM ready to break across your consciousness and cause you to see beyond the limitations of your human thought. I AM the Blaze of Life. “If ye be in the Spirit [consciousness] ye are no more under the law.” The law of what? The law of your own belief. If ye be in the Spirit, do not fall down and say it is hard to be in the Spirit. You are at this instant, and always have been, in the Spirit of Life – only the holy torch which is within you was not fired into flame by pure recognition of the God Presence in everything, here and now and always.
Awake, thou, across the black night of trying to make Me appear; behold, I stand at the door and knock – not as some strange historical character, but as a living, breathing, pulsating life – a Blaze of Life which has come finally into expression. Do you hear? You who read this page? Yea, this line? I AM looking through your eyes; let Me illumine the page for you – let Me illumine life for you and cause you to see the flower before the seed and the bird before the egg.
Be still – do not attempt to blow the Blaze of Life out, or make it flicker to suit your poor human capacities. You will begin now to appropriate some of the things which I could not tell you of back in Jerusalem. You will begin to absorb some of the good which is all about you. You will be quiet. Yes, you who read this page, your chattering will be over – you will feel My presence, and after that nothing will matter, and all the idle trying to demonstrate Me will pass – will be lost in the Blaze of Life which will reveal to you that there is little need of demonstrating that which is present in all its fullness. You will go by the way giving – giving – giving – such a precious substance that even your gaze resting upon so-called evil will transform it. The halo which will emanate from you will not make you an impossible saint of the early-day Christians, but will be the light which you will carry into the everyday world, and which as you go on your way will fall into many a basement dwelling and make it a palace.
Again will come to your remembrance (for when you recognize the Blaze of Life you will not be a healer, but a revelator of the Isness of the Kingdom here and now) the glorious and Divine indifference – Divine indifference because it does not recognize the two powers, one good and the other evil, but the Oneness of the Spiritual Universe, which by reason of its one-ness and unity becomes indifferent to beliefs amassed from the judgment of appearances. Healing will flow into expression as naturally as light dispels the shadows. Why should one, knowing the nature, then, of shadows, not be indifferent to them – regardless of how real they may appear? He is divinely indifferent to them, and knows that nothing he does or attempts to do with a shadow will change its essential nature; but, recognizing the truth that with the coming of light the end of the shadow automatically takes place, he turns his attention to light.
I AM the Light of this (present) world. I AM always very near, as near as you yourself are to any condition or situation. I AM a light which is set upon a hill, thereby illuminating all the valleys and ravines of human belief. The light piercing the dark caves of the earth reveals precious stones, unseen by the human eye unaided by the light. The Light of the I AM pierces the deep recesses of your human thought, and finds hidden there royal diadems of jewels of attainment – such jewels as are beyond all price. They are there in you, awaiting the recognition of the Light within.
When you identify yourself with this glorious Light of the within, and are God-conscious of its presence, then will your words shoot forth on streams of lightning and illumine the way for not only you, but for countless others. It will be with the impersonal and impartial giving of this Light, that greater effulgence will come to you – the halo shall be extended, ever caking in newer and fresher mansions in the Father’s house. In the language of the Scriptures, you shall enlarge the borders of your tent.
You cannot bring the Light as something you carry in your hands or something you force into expression by so much thinking, but you show forth the Light by reason of being the Light yourself. The whole process will become more and more unconscious, and hence more and more natural, reliable, and productive of results. “Blessings, blessings, blessings – so many you cannot count them” will become true. So automatically will the Power of God function in your life; you will presently be swallowed up in it, and be unable to sort out demonstrations of the Power and talk about them. So many blessings you cannot count them, you will not be seeking little gifts of the Spirit; you will come and lave and drink and eat.
“Eat my flesh and drink my blood” has small comfort to a helpless sinner – as taught by theology; but it is a wellspring of beauty, a gushing fountain of life and vitality, to the awakened soul who once recognizes that the flesh to be eaten is the substance of Spirit made manifest – the heavenly manna – and the blood is the inspiration of God Almighty coming into his life with a great Blaze of Light.
You who are silently reading this, do you hear what I say unto you? You who read – you? Be still; that which is back of all thought is a thinker – and the thought is only the farthest reaches of the impression, put through the limitation of the intellect. Be still, then, and I will impress you with something so wonderful that it cannot be put into words. You will begin to accept some of the new proportions of the new heaven and earth. Be still – do you hear? Learn to accept your good. Leave the dry letter of the word and imbibe the soul – it is well with thee Now – do you hear?
I have strange and wondrous things to impress you with. My promises are kept – do you hear? Read, then, one of them, and see for yourself. Are you afraid to trust Me wholly and alone? I give nothing to cowards, because cowardice has narrowed down the aperture to such diminutive proportions and only the tiniest ray can penetrate. Listen:
“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
Do you hear? Believest thou this? You who read this page? You? As a servant of the human beliefs you knew not what the Master or Overlord of chance and fate did; but I call you friend, and make known to you all things that I have heard of My Father. That is, I AM ready to reveal to you the depths and heights of the True Word of God which is above all the human laws and opinions. Be still – you who read this. You.
If you give the “cup of cold water” you will not go unrewarded. If you give to the perishing soul the glorious freshness of the Presence of the God Power here and now, and if you bring to him the Kingdom of Heaven as present, this will quench his thirst and moisten the parched lips so long in the desert of human reasoning.
“Seek not what ye shall eat … neither be of doubtful mind,” but “seek ye first the Kingdom of God … and all these things shall be added unto you.”
This is just the reverse of the strange idea that by reeling off words you can get things, or that the reason Jesus came to earth was to give man a power to work magic and get prosperity and all sorts of things. Jesus came to reveal the Kingdom as here and now, where everything is already in manifestation and does not need to be re-created by a thinking man.
Be still – you who read this page. You. Do you believe that “all these things will be added unto you”? Yes or no? What can you do about it? Can you make them appear?
Blaze of Life – Blaze of Life within you who read this page – shine forth – shine forth, dissipating the shadows of disease and inharmony – shine forth. Shine forth in all thy splendor – reveal the Kingdom as here and now, complete and whole.
Blessed Are the Meek
THE HYPNOSIS of this statement when taken from the human standpoint is already too well known to make further comment. Thousands of people, many sincere, but many insincere, have thought by being “meek” they would inherit the earth. Later on—a good deal later—they find they have inherited nothing but the backwash of life and that their diet is composed of the “crumbs” under the table.
The self-effacing martyrdom of many people who believe they are being meek is pathetic, and yet many of them believe sincerely that it is the command of God to make themselves the “door mats” of the universe.
Nothing could be further from it. When Jesus “turned the other cheek” it was not from the “hang dog” state of mind, but from the supreme consciousness of the Power that lay in it. He knew that if the other cheek were “slapped” it would be the everlasting end of the one who did the slapping. We apparently can trifle with the laws of God to a certain degree—but one day the “meek thing” you have been kicking around will turn the other cheek and then you are on the SPOT.
The moment the Jesus Christ-consciousness comes into being then it is just as well that nothing in human form or human thought tries to “slap the other cheek.” Suddenly the “meek thing” has become the tower of strength and fire.
“My sheep, hear my voice.” It doesn’t matter about anything else-but because they hear my voice they obey, and in this obedience are they given the power of “Meekness.” The High and mighty may appear dangerously near to destroying the “Meek”—but all of a sudden the Other Cheek is turned—and then the game is finished. Subtle and unseen powers with which he is wholly unable to cope begin his undoing by a way he knows not of. He discovers that he is in the garden where he does not belong and that he is “naked.” So is it with all the evil of the universe which is desperately trying to make a last stand.
The “Meek” are the people who remain silent and let the “big voice” that knows it all tell everything. The wise one remains meek while the power and energy of the adversary is wasted in a thousand and one ways. He knows to “know nothing” is to know everything, but if he tells it to everybody, then it becomes nothing. A secret is a powerful thing—but it is no secret when it is told and has no further power. So the Meek remain meek and unassuming until
they are to speak of the glory of God—and that will be after they have inherited the earth. What earth? “Their” earth! We all have an earth of our own—it is our conception of what the “earth” means to us. Like a radio program we can all have it and yet all be left and we have choice and selectivity, mixed or unmixed with static and interference brought forth on a good machine or an inferior one. Do you begin to see that in the consciousness we have all and yet all is left —and this is all “foolishness” in the eyes of man—and so it is. We are not “taking thought” on anything like this—it has to be revealed in consciousness, and then the light thought will flow from that consciousness and cause us to perceive many things.
Yes—“the Meek shall inherit the earth”—and this inheritance is worth having. So be meek—“Salute no man on the highway of Life” —don’t discuss the Power of God for the sake of an argument or else you will come out the loser.
Flee from the man whose breath is in his nostrils because he wants to compare notes and he “knows everything” any way—which is nothing. There is a sure check on this. “By their works shall ye know them.” If they haven’t any works they haven’t anything to say to you—and this needs the High consciousness of God to interpret—since at the very same time they may have no things—yet you will see and understand what the Spirit says unto the Churches.
“Keep silent before Me”—Don’t tell ME what to do—and don’t tell me what you need. I know all your needs before you ask. You only have to permit this LIGHT to come through into manifestation. Light, that through the consciousness of meekness will show you the “earth” you are to inherit.
Yes—the “meek shall inherit the earth.”
BLESSINGS
‘They were gathered together in one place, of their own accord, and were baptized of the Holy Ghost.”
Many people do not accept the blessing of the fulfilment of the law. Time after time they are “gathered together of their own accord,’ but, by failing to recognize that thy have functioned a law that is fruitful of results, they sit trying to make the goodness of God appear, instead of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost : instead of feeling the down pouring Floods of light and illumination the great engulfing inrush of blessings. To function the law of spirit is to automatically release its fulfilment.
Awake, thou that sleepeth – awake and arise from the dead, and Christ – your Inner Lord shall give thee light; and you shall suddenly and with great happiness of soul, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, for you will see and hear great floods of blessings, blessings so numerous they are as the sands of the sea. Right here and now, right throughout the blackness of your material thinking, break the floods of light that reveal the blessings as already here and now. As the coming of light in a darkened art gallery reveals thousands of treasures which were there all the time, yet invisible, so the coming of your recognition of the Presence illumes your very own universe and reveals to you the infinite blessings all about you.
‘Blessings, blessings, blessings, so many you cannot count them.” Right now – right here. Because you and I have at this place of at-one-ment. You, the reader, and 1, the writer, have met in this place of glorious recognition of the inner Christ, have “Done this of our accord”, we are at this glorious instant functioning the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Yes, you are at this instant baptized by the Holy Ghost; the great flood of light which reveals heaven – here and now. At this instant your eyes are being bathed in pure light, and the scales of human reasoning and limitation are dropping from them. You are at this instant seeing the wonders of the Kingdom here and now. You are filled with the thrilling sense of joy, and you exclaim for the first time in your life: ‘Blessings, blessings, blessings, so any you cannot count them.” You exclaim from the heights of recognition the vision that is revealed to you of your true self. Blessings, blessings, blessings. They are at this instant flooding you. You are clear and free from the limitations of former beliefs. You lave in the glorious waters of Spirit. A million barnacles of belief fall) from you. Your entire being – your body – with your whole universe is permeated with the pure, glistening, pulsating substance of Life – Life of God. And you, standing in the eternal ways, are experiencing this oneness with the universal Whole – the result of having recognized that you have functioned a definite Law of Spirit. Do you see? Are you at this instant experiencing the baptism which you have brought about? You who read this page?
Phrases and words are old and trite. Repeating the wondrous words of the Bible is like stating so any platitudes to ears that hear only the letter, or like the remembrance of so any tormenting, unfulfilled promises to those who are trying to make these words come true. Attempting to record the inspiration of the Almighty in man made words is almost impossible. No wonder, then, that the Spirit says “I AM the voice of the one crying in the wilderness’ (of human hope), “prepare ye the way of our Lord.’ The Way of our Lord is the way that is flooded with blessings. It is the way of self-expression, the way of the Christ Self. It is a way that comes not with reason, but is IMPRESSED upon the mind, as a man who has lain down to sleep in a dark night finds that, while he slept, the new day has already burst upon him – unannounced, unheralded. Who can stay the dawn? No more can you with stay the glorious dawn of the Kingdom of Heaven, that even now is breaking over the horizon of your night of self-imposed limitations and tears. Even now you stand at the threshold of a new day, which is the day of NOW – the Day of Revelation. you who read this page, do you hear? It is DAYBREAK for you. Do you hear? The hard, ugly objects against which you stumbled in the darkness are revealed in the light of truth as glorious blessings.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not far off – it is near. Awake! It is for your acceptance. Too good to be true? Yes, to the human sense. Must take time? Yes, to the human sense. Is not practical? Not to the human sense. A thousand have tried it and failed, just because they TRIED it. There is no effort in the action of God. Unlabored, untrammeled, free into expression is its manner of appearing. “Ten thousand shall fall at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.” Believest thou this?
The object in the distance does not grow in size as you move towards it, although it seems to. It has always been the same size, but as you approach it, it appears to be larger than when viewed from afar. So with the Kingdom which you perceive in the far distance of your life. Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken away from it. You are playing with the shadows of belief when you think to add or take from, the word of God. You cannot take a little of the substance of God’s riches as a thief might steal a handful or money from a bank. There is no separation, and no place to take anything FROM. Everything is here and now. You cannot take anything from the sum total of a radio concert: regardless of the size of the room into which it is released, it is inside, outside, and everywhere, and inseparably joined all the time. It is only the limited human concept that stops the concert at one point and starts it the other side of a wall. In reality it is everywhere and complete.
You do not grow into the Kingdom, yet to the human sense of things you SEEM to be growing more and more spiritual. What you ARE doing is becoming more and more aware of the Kingdom as here and now. Healing, then, is only becoming aware, in a more or less degree, of a spiritually perfect man. Do you not take heart at the glorious news that the Kingdom is already here, and lay aside the sin of trying to make it appear, or trying to keep others out of the glorious possibilities of the Sons of the Living God, by first telling them they are sons of perdition, and are full of evil? Awake, thou that sleepeth! When will you cease the condemnation of a Kingdom? When will you cease the stone-casting at yourself and others? Neither do I condemn thee – go, and sin no more.’
‘BLESSINGS, BLESSINGS, BLESSINGS. SO MANY YOU CAN NOT COUNT THEM.’ not the old concept of blessings, which is a cross between self-pity and self-righteousness, but the revelation of the Kingdom. When the word ‘Blessings” is said from the vantage point of recognition, it actually floods the soul with light and glory. Speak the word. ‘Only speak the word, and my servant [Body] shall be healed,” and the “word” is ‘I will. Bless you, bless you, bless you.”
Blessings, blessings, blessings go out from this state of consciousness like million of birds loosed on a plague-ridden country. Each one shall destroy the ugly pest from off the land, and in a twinkling of an eye you shall see the land (your land) green and fresh and fair. Blessings, blessings, blessings. “My word shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish whereunto it is sent.’ Do you hear? You who read this page? You? ‘And it shall come to pass’ – do you hear? This is a statement of fact. And it shall come to pass!’ – it is bound to happen – ‘if thou shalt harken diligently unto the voice of the Lord’ (not the voice of man). “The Lord thy God [the Lord in the midst of thee will set thee on high above all nations of the earth” – above all the false law that you have functioned under on the earth.
‘And all these blessings shall corn? on thee.” Beloved, put up your sword. Do you not see that, even while you are fighting in the darkness, these blessings are finally bound to overtake thee? They shall come upon thee like a thief in the night. A thief in the night comes in silence, at the darkest hour. Be still, be still, be still. It is well with thee.
“Blessed shalt thou be is the city and blessed shalt thou be in the field.’ Wherever thou art, thou shalt see the floods of blessings about thee. Whether it be in the city or whether it be in the open field, the All-Blessing is there. There is no place where the I AM, with its full quota of blessings, is not. Do you see, then, why the command is, “Go, take no thought for the scrip, the purse, the rob, the ring, the journey?” But as long as man is still working on the personal plane, he finds his mind much occupied with the amassing of things for the journey. He says, ‘I want much money, so that I can do the work of God and help others.” tear off this mask of selfishness and stand free. If you want much, it is to be known of man and your charities. The Son of the Living God does not want much knowing that he has it all. He has nothing to do with possessions but to give them away. He must of necessity break the bread in order that the multitudes may be filled. Be still. Be still. Be still. That which is obvious does not need to be mentioned.
‘Blessed shall be the fruits of thy body, and the fruits of thy ground, and the fruits of thy cattle. and the increase of thy kind, and the flocks of thy sheep.” Everything you touch will be blessed, and the glorious universe which seemed for lo, these many years, to be a desert, parched and dried, will suddenly burst into bloom, and everything shall be blessed and glorified, while the beautiful fruits of the former desert shall be unlimited.
Do you see, beloved, the eleventh hour has struck, and floods of light are emanating from the very presence of the Kingdom, here and now, filtering through the darkness of your human belief?
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.” Blessed shall be the increase of good that shall fill every empty place of former years, and thou shalt be the impersonal giver of all good – learning that the way of revelation of increase lies in the ability to place yourself in the role of the infinite, impersonal giver.
The world is flooding over with joy running over with the glory of this infinite downpour of blessings that you have called forth by recognition. If you lie in a bed racked with pain, the streaming light of this blessing will reveal to your human eye the perfection of the Son of the Living God, and you shall arise. Do you hear? If you sit in rags wondering where the next meal is coming from, you shall suddenly find yourself richly clothed, and know the abundance of the child of the Highest. Do you hear? Do you hear, you who read this line? Do you see that “whereas before you were blind, now you can see?” Now. Do you utter silently, ‘Blessings, blessings, blessings – so any you cannot count them?’ Do you?
And whithersoever thou goeth thou shalt find, “Blessed shalt thou be when thou goest in and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.””Be not afraid: it is I.’ Be not afraid of your good – I give the Kingdom of Heaven, not to the adult, but to the child. The child can accept its world and heaven of blessings without question, without reason, without tiresome argument, or trying to make it happen. Do you see that the adult is the only one who can commit adultery? He adulterates everything, even the word of God. He places heaven at the end of a human life of misery, and makes the gateway thereunto, death – whereas I AM the LIFE. The Kingdom of Heaven shall not be taken by violence, by reason, neither shall it be entered through the portals of death. And yet YOU die daily, and YOU must be born again. You die to the human beliefs of today, no matter how high and fine they seemed to be; you die daily, to be born again to a greater and more beautiful sense of the Presence. You are becoming more and more aware of the Presence, and, as you approach it through this awareness, you see it more and more in detail. As, descending from the air in a plane, you at first see only a sell speck, which on closer examination divides and subdivides itself, until it is seen as a great and flourishing city, so will the points of truth, that you have conceived at a far distance of human thought, reveal themselves as great and glorious states of consciousness, and the idea will unfold as you approach this revelation.
After all, beloved, ‘Ye have not chosen Me: I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go forth and bring forth fruits.., and whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name [nature], he will give unto you.” A great burst of revelation comes with, ‘Ye have not chosen Me.’ All these years we have thought that we did something personal when we chose to follow after the Master. We were labouring under self-hypnotism that WE were making a sacrifice, becoming a martyr: or else we were actuated by fear. Suddenly we find that this is all false and that ye did not choose Me, but I have chosen and ordained you.’ This very power chose you. Do you hear, you who read this page, this line? Do you hear that you were chosen – that you were caught in the net of which the Master spoke ‘I will make you fishers of men?” Caught in the net, and chosen for a glorious expression of the blessings of the Kingdom here and now! And, further, you were “ordained” – not by some person or organization. Not because someone pronounced certain words and sang songs over you were you ordained; but in spite of this, and in spite of even the condemnation that might have been cast upon you. ‘I have chosen YOU, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit.’ Do you hear? You who read this page? You? Do you begin to see why I have said unto you, “Be still and know that I AM God’ – be still, and know, and listen to what I have to say to you?
Dare you sit, in this glorious baptism which is even at this instant going on, and accept the blessing: ‘I have chosen you,’ and be ready to hear the command, ‘Go into all the world – preach the gospel”:, Dare you be ready to go into this wretched place in which you lived – your consciousness and say, “Be of good cheer. It is I. Blessings. Blessings. Blessings” ? Dare you say to your personal devil , ‘It is wonderful. Blessings. Blessings. Blessings,’ knowing that there is only One, and that it is I? When you recognize Me as there, I will transform the darkness into light, and the shadows of human belief shall flee away. It is well. It is wonderful.
“Blessings. Blessings. Blessings – SO MANY YOU CANNOT COUNT THEM.” Let that be IMPRESSED upon your consciousness and it will express in your daily life Blessings here and blessings there, Blessings here and blessings there, Blessings here and blessings there, Blessings everywhere ————-‘ shall form itself into a wondrous melody, and will go singing through your glorious day, like a host of golden butterflies darting to and fro over a field of sunny flowers.
‘Blessings, Blessings, Blessings so many you cannot count them.’
Born Again
“MARVEL not ye must be born again.”
The definite statement of what must take place before you can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven here and now made manifest, is little heeded by the average Truth student. He does not stop to see or realize that in order to do the works that Jesus said were possible for him to do, that he would have to be “born again” into a state of consciousness where those things which were formerly impossible, come under the head of the natural and possible.
He is admonished time after time, that it is useless to put new wine into old bottles, or to put a new patch on an old garment, and yet he will try with the limited physical senses to do those things which at the beginning are listed in the category of the impossible. Hence, he is merely trying to hypnotize himself into believing that some “miracle” will happen to him if he tries hard enough.
There is no possible way for the mind of the limited human senses to grasp the statements which set aside the laws of time, space, gravity, cohesion, and adhesion.
All the works of Jesus come under this head. Nothing he did was in any way subservient to the human findings. Everything that he showed forth set aside definitely a humanly accepted theory of law. How, then, is it possible for a man to attain these works working from a limited human sense capacity? “I can of myself do nothing” immediately states the position Jesus took to the limited faulty human senses.
“Having eyes, ye see not, and ears, ye hear not,” was addressed to people who in the human sense of the word both saw and heard — and yet they could not “see nor hear” that which belonged to the Power which he manifested.
“Marvel not ye must be born again” — do not get excited about it, if you must be — you can be, and the sooner you get over the idea that it is some strange and elaborate initiation, the sooner you will find you are “gradually merging into this new-born state.
“As you have borne the image of the earthly, so shall ye also bear the image of the heavenly.” Is there anything so strange in that statement? No, there is nothing strange in any of the teaching of Jesus; it is sane, practical, and usable by the man in the street; the only strange thing about it all is the weird and difficult processes that have been thrown about it by the human mind.
If the child could get into the Kingdom of Heaven through the all-embracing capacity of accepting something which could not be reasoned out, then it does not seem so impossible for the adult to lay aside his adultery, his making the universe two instead of one.
The “peace which passeth all understanding” certainly is not going to be sounded or experienced by the understanding of you or your teacher, however famous you or your teacher may be. And yet that peace in which lie all things, is possible of attainment, but apparently not through the “understanding.”
“Seek peace and pursue it, and all good shall come unto you.” It is definite and direct — all good shall come unto you. Do you hear? That is what you have been after, isn’t it? You have wanted the all good, and there is no ambiguity as to how it will come if you follow the instructions of Jesus Christ — if you come unto Me.
“Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which are prepared for them that love the Law.”
The eyes have grown dim trying to see that which has been prepared, and have finally decided that it is some invisible thing that will come after death. And yet, not satisfied with this, man keeps on trying to see it now — or to experience some of the marvelous things which the heart has been unable to sense.
It is evident, if you cannot see and hear and experience by the human senses the things which are prepared for you, it is because of their limitation, and yet we know that through these very senses comes the verification of the Presence of the Lord. “Feel Me, and see that a spirit hath not flesh and blood.”
Through these very senses man experiences the word made flesh and discovers that what he is seeking, and what Jesus was talking about, is not an imaginary kingdom where vaporous bodies float about singing all day long, but that the resurrected word made flesh functions in the world though not of it as a tangible and very much alive and real thing.
The command to transcend both time and space is too difficult for the human limitations. “You say it is four months until the harvest, but I say, ‘Look again,’ ” carries with it a demand for the extended vision — a something that telescopes the thing the human mind calls time and space and which says it is so necessary to produce the said harvest.
What are you going to do — argue about the possibility of it being so? Then you are arguing with the Teaching of Jesus Christ and you are setting yourself up. Why? Because you are looking through your limited human senses, and what you cannot see with your eyes and handle with your hands you will not accept and, further than this, you insist that because you cannot see or understand it that it is not so — yet in the same breath you will insist that you follow the Master.
“Follow Me” means precisely what it says — “Follow Me.” You have already admitted your defeat. You have already decided that you do not know where you are going nor what is going to happen.
“Anything might happen” is the uncertain shaky human reasoning and understanding — but this could not possibly be so of a “Changeless God and a changeless perfect law”; the only thing that changes is your human belief regarding a thing — all else remains in its eternal undisturbed harmony. It is wonderful to contemplate the extension of the senses, the capacities of the “new born” idea. These capacities start where the human capacities leave off. Without the proper grasp of the senses you will be bound to draw all your conclusions from the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear. These conclusions, then, naturally will be faulty, and your judgment will be from appearances, and meet with the stern, unrelenting law, “Judge not from appearances, but judge by righteous judgment.”
“Marvel not ye must be born again,” otherwise you are still working in the “four months until the harvest” of human reasoning, and you may perish if you have four months before the harvest can come. If your prayers are put through the same time and space proposition, you may fall by the way long before the answer has time to reach you — and how will the limited human reason handle the statement, “Before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
This is an utter impossibility, and you easily can get a group together to prove that it is an utter falsity; but what you are proving only are the limits of your own enlightenment. Because you cannot prove a thing does not argue for or against its reality; it merely states a condition of your own progress. “There are many things I could not tell you because of your unbelief.” There are many things that you cannot grasp through the limited human senses — there is not sufficient capacity in them to grasp the new elevation. The “before you call I will answer” needs something higher than human reasoning to cause you to come in line — and that “something” is pretty near to the power which dissolves the mirage of time and space and human limitations from you.
The “look again” seems to be merely an adjustment of the lenses of the eyes; the time element in it is so sudden and impossible. “Who by searching can find me?” What have you in the human mind which can “search out the deep and hidden things of Spirit”? Nothing but the quality of imagination, and of that you think little in the practical, workaday world.
Yet Jesus submitted to the baptism of John the Baptist — inspiration permitted itself to be baptized by reasoning, but the moment this ceremony was over, the glorious balance of Life having been established, he was through forever with that idea. We see him moving with the glorious power of the inspiration.
“When the inspiration of the All Mighty (heed the word All) has come unto you, it shall lead you (yes, you) into all things” — when you see the inspiration that is the quality of the newly born moving into place of expression through and against everything, since it recognizes no condition or limitation — then you will know why it is necessary for the eyes to be opened and the ears unstopped, no matter how keen your physical hearing and seeing may be at this moment.
As the aggregate mass of evidence of the senses forms the life of the human kind, so does the evidence of the spiritual senses reveal the kingdom here and now — and when the one is lost in the other, then the word becomes flesh. When the limited human sense is lost in its divine counterpart, then the new capacities of the sense so far transcend the human reasoning that it is impossible to understand. The blending of the life with the universal life causes the “glass darkly” to disappear from in front of the vision.
Little by little it dawns upon man that the purpose of God is not for demonstrating the power of Truth, and that the idea that he studies about God in order to be able to do something that his fellow man cannot do must fall by the way in favor of the conscious knowledge that he is merging into the nature of God, and this very merging causes that which the human kind call miracles to be the ever-present manifestation.
The end and ultimate of this search for God is not, then, as had been supposed by thousands, to find a way to make bread out of stones or do strange and curious things — in short, to perform miracles – but it is for the releasing of the True Nature of God into manifestation. If the action that is about to take place through it is not natural, because it is God action, then it is a false human belief trying to make itself felt as something.
If the child can get into the Kingdom, so can you. Or can you? Perhaps your intellect is so great that you have to smile at the simplicity of the child and Jesus, and so you smile until you stop smiling and that is the end of that.
Neither is the end of this search for God self aggrandizement. He who seeks the Power so that he may be known by men to do many “good” works, mistakes the Divine Nature which could not possibly act in any other fashion. He is limiting God and attempting to place a personal trade mark on the Infinite.
We do not good works for any other reason than that we cannot do any other kind of works: the nature of a blackberry is to produce blackberries, and the nature of God is to be God. And that “being” God is what the human man calls supernatural and miraculous, yet it is but natural and true to God. No law of God is set aside when a miracle takes place, but the Nature has finally overshadowed a human consciousness with such a flood of light that it has got through the “glass darkly” and in a measure has neutralized the thing called problem, the problem only having been the product of the foreshortened senses of the reasoning man.
“If you ask anything in my name [nature], that do I unto you.” When you plant the blackberry bush and water it, you are asking it in the nature of the blackberry bush to produce blackberries — what else can it do? and how naturally it is functioning when it does. It is the ultimate end or purpose of its existence.
And so, when you ask anything in the name or nature of Jesus Christ, the action that takes place before you ask is merely the expression of the nature, and it is going to be natural, simple, glorious; and only when you get into alignment with this idea can you ever hope to “Follow Me” into the heaven here and now made manifest. If it is not natural, then it cannot take place often, for it will be supernatural and will have to come under the heading of the supernatural.
The supernatural is that which happens once in a lifetime to the limited human reasoning, when for a moment it has relaxed the narrow confines of itself and let the power through. The rest of its life it is trying to make it happen again; but, as you cannot stand before a blackberry bush and demand that it give forth a measure of blackberries at your command, neither can you “make” the God nature act – in both instances the human mind first lays the wall of impossibility in front of the proposition.
“Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” We are beginning to understand why; the child can have his Father Christmas because he can transcend his human reasoning sufficiently to believe in that which he has never seen and which through every avenue of human reasoning is impossible.
“Except ye become as a little child ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” The ruling is strict and definitely outlined. “Except you become as a little child.” All the human reasoning is set aside, and the Divine flow of inspiration carries us into the presence of the eternal Father Christmas and the everlasting Christmas Tree which stands in the midst of the Garden of Life.
It is all so wonderful, the new day that is even now breaking over the horizon of your day.
THE BOY WHO WENT to A PICNIC
THOUSANDS OF men, women and children had been following Jesus about, thrilled at the miracles He performed. He continued to show them that the Power He was using was indigenous in every man, – but they, even as we do today, found it much easier to attribute wonders to an individual, rather than BELIEVE and do likewise.
And to test his class in the outdoor laboratory of the soul, – seeing the multitude of hungry people, He posed the question to one of His students:
“Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?”
And it goes on to explain: “And He said this to prove him: for He Himself knew what He would do.”
When were His followers going to shove off into the crystalline waters of pure BELIEF, into a greater power than the sum total of all man’s knowledge?
Then answered one of His disciples and said; still doubting:
“There is a lad here who hath five barley leaves and two small fishes, – but what are they among so many?”
Jesus taught through parables and fables. This was the only possible way to say or show something; which could not be said or shown to the dense human thought.
It was not the spectacular demonstration of increase of bread that was so important, – but the law back of it, which could not be explained in so many words. And hence the importance of the manifestation in this case was the fact that some gamin had brought his lunch with him. I wonder why only one person of the many thousands had thought of that?
Well, if you look farther in all the out-side happenings of the Bible, you will find there was always a handful of meal, three drops of oil, five leaves, some dregs of wine, – and so on. There is always a “starter”, or a sort of “pied-a-terre”, – a point from which to start. But generally it is so disgustingly small that it is either overlooked or cast aside as worthless.
The significant point is this, – that every man has within his present state of existence, that “starter”, however small it may be, – which if given the chance, will feed the five thousand.
It is interesting how this kid took his lunch, while all the others went empty handed.
Afterthought: There is the rather sharp rebuke regarding all this in the question Jesus posited to his followers when the next day they came back for more bread, – “Did you not see the miracle, – only the bread?” – indicating the necessity of the extension of the sense of sight.
BREAKING PATTERNS
“Former things have passed away — behold, all things are become new.” Former ideas about truth are yielding to the new order, the new day. Old patterns are recognized as false, and are crumbling away, disintegrating before the Presence — the Life — the new Revelation. It is wonderful! The moment you “See” with the spiritual eye, you will perceive there is no more healing to take place — only revelation. In the new state of awareness, every time you recognize your Father Consciousness, you change the patter of the Son. In other words, when you perceive the Permanent Consciousness of the changeless Father, then, the changing, shifting nature of John Smith breaks the old pattern and shows forth a new design.
This merging with the Father caused the patterns of limitation about Jesus to disintegrate — to fall apart, as it were. When the new vision or idea or pattern was established, then the atoms or elements integrated again as though they were particles of steel drawn into place by a magnet. The moment you see what takes place in this new consciousness, at that moment, you will stop trying to heal the body, or to change the expression of it. Transfiguration does not deal with cured, helped or healed bodies – — it is a completely new pattern which suddenly integrates out of the elements and forms of the former pattern.
It is true that you cannot make a block of ice into a sphere without first crushing it, thereby losing its transparency. It is possible after a fashion to change its shape, but that is difficult. If, however, the ice is melted, the water can be poured into any mould desired and frozen again. This is a poor illustration, but it will suffice for the moment, and will give some idea of what Jesus indicated was in the grasp of every man who recognized it. It is written in the law: “Who by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?” and the command “Go into all the world — take no thought about the robe, body, purse, etc.” Why this admonition? Because by taking thought about all the ways and means and things in the universe, has not helped you to get any of them. Those old, hypnotic thought-patterns are the models of ice that must be melted down instead of being changed, in order that the new design may appear.
Do you understand why the thought-taking process (in the ordinary sense of the word) cannot change the body or the effect of the word on the body? At best it can only bring on a form of self- hypnosis. Trying to cure the body by thought is like trying to change the form of a block of ice — you may accomplish a little something — but the results gained from working from the outside are practically nil. But in your new awareness of the Light of the Son-Father and the Holy Ghost, you find out what is taking place when the Light comes through. You become a new creature of the Christ Jesus. Do you understand what a new creature means? It is not the block of ice chiseled into a new shape, the old body patched up, the new wine in old bottles. It is a complete disintegration of the hard, fast thought-picture manifestations which you have had, and the integration into the new idea — “The picture shown to you on the Mount.” Every knee shall finally bend at the name (nature) of Jesus Christ. It is well with you. It is wonderful! For even as I write these words this very agreement is taking place between us — you have only to recognize this in me, to reach out and Touch Me, and receive the blessing. Do you hear? The stir of the risen Lord within you will cause you to be filled with joy. An eagle flying swiftly over the chasm on its great strong wings is a far cry from the unhatched egg lying in the nest on the mountain peak. Within that eagle egg is contained an urge to fly. It is possible for the egg to fly through the air of course, not of its own volition, but nevertheless, it could, after a fashion, experience a sensation of flying by being thrown. It could never however, take off by its own power, even though the urge within were very strong — thus with you.
In the Sonship degree of consciousness you are filled with longings for health, happiness, wealth and expression; but though you have the urge to acquire these ideals, so well-developed that it seems only a question of will-power and grit to obtain them, yet with your present equipment, it is as impossible for you to do it, as it is for an egg to fly. The pattern of consciousness must be changed in order that these things may take form in your life. They must have a new vehicle to bring them into expression — a new shape, as it were, of consciousness. With all its intense urge from within, the egg cannot fly, even though it were covered with feathers and made to appear as an eaglet. “Marvel not — ye (yes, you) must be born again” in order that the new level of spirituality to which you are ascending may find a consciousness which can take high-powered instructions, and bring you by a way “ye know not of.” It is marvelous! As this word is being written, the room is filled with Light, all of which will pour out on you, and you will find something new, a stirring within, an awakening, and a tendency to sing within — an inner awareness which is suddenly arousing itself. Just as in the legends, when the Prince touched the lips of the Sleeping Beauty, a great stirring — a great awakening, was suddenly brought to the whole castle and estates — life and joy began to express themselves in the new day — the new pattern. So the Prince of Revelation has touched your lips and you are awakening from the death-sleep induced by the hypnotism of human thinking. It is wonderful!
When the urge for life is felt in the egg, there is a stirring, a cry within: “Give me a body.” Just so, when the urge for the beautiful and happy things in life is felt within you, a cry comes up from the depths “Give me a body.” You are starved to death because you have been feeding on the husks of symbolic phenomena. You are worn out with symbolic wealth which you say you possess, but can spend only in imagination. It, too, is constantly crying out, “Give me a body, give me a body.” It is wonderful! this crying out of the unborn within you. “The children cry out from the loins for expression.” — “Give me a body.” So the egg rests under the warmth of the mother bird, and from the instant the center of it is touched with the warmth of love, something has started. What has started? The pattern plan is beginning to form, and that very forming of the new consciousness is going to break the shell of the old design, and change the egg into a bird. Still will it be an egg, for it has lost nothing, but has absorbed the entire substance of the egg — yet in its new expression it is not egg. So is it with you when you are absorbed into the Christ consciousness — you are no more you as of old, yet are you — but no longer under the curse which formerly governed you. The egg is under the curse of the law of chance. It is acted upon even as unenlightened man is acted upon by human destiny. Neither he nor the egg has capacity to get out of the way of danger. He may try it, but more than likely he will move into the path of destruction. An egg cannot move out of the way of on-coming destruction, yet as the bird, it has full capacity to do so. Thus, the new pattern you are to bring out is the thing that will save you from being acted upon by all the false beliefs you have about you. The old pattern of a diseased or worn-out body is acted upon by the beliefs of disease or age and nothing can be done about it. These outside forces which have been established by being accepted are there for one purpose, and that is your destruction. Nothing in the human thought can stop this, except temporarily, for this is human destiny that must be fulfilled in that degree of consciousness. Do you begin to see why Jesus came saying, “You must be born again,” and why He made constant reference to the new-borning process of life, referring always to changing of the pattern instead of patching up the old design; to disintegration of human thought-pictures and reintegration of spiritual manifestation.
When heat permeates a grain of popcorn it is so filled with warmth that it automatically bursts into a new pattern. It cannot help itself once it is subjected to sufficient heat — so is it with you. Once you subject yourself to God you cannot help or stay the change, the transformation that is bound to take place. It is automatic and is something that cannot be stayed. It is the evolving thing — the wonderful quickening of the power which destroys all former limitation. “Behold I make all things new” even your body and your world. You now see that we possess nothing that makes for bondage, but do possess all things for use and joy. The law of integrity which says, “Be careful about nothing,” and at the same times says, “Pick up the pieces, see that nothing be lost,” is the glorious freedom of spirit. This spirit is not wasteful, profligate, destructive, but lavish to such an extent that it will flow over all the earth — the great gush of life. In the jungle where growth is so prolific that one can almost hear it, every available inch of ground and space is filled with expression — trees and vines and flowers — luscious fruits, gorgeous birds — yes, the whole of creation is heaped up, is pressed down, is crowded together, is running over with manifestations. So is it with your “desert” body — which suddenly becomes a point of expression where all manifestation must and will come through into being. “Yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Your body (temple) is the point of contact between the seen and the unseen and it is only through your body that the power can be stepped down into visibility, bringing your finest fulfillment into manifestation — actually giving you your heart’s desire. It is only when the sacredness of this wonderful life comes to you that this can be achieved. It is not possible so long as you are playing around with the human idea, trying to impress someone, or to show what you can do. It is true you might have to be famous — it is nothing to be sought for, but you might be called into that expression. If so, you can handle it, if you are willing to let your consciousness be stayed on the Power, and take no personal credit or blame.
It is wonderful what this new revelation is bringing through to us at this moment. You are beginning to see why you should “Come apart from among them and be separate.” This is not a hiding away of the body, but a hiding away of the “Pearl of great price.” You will not lack recognition when the time comes, and it will be recognition of the right sort, because a luminous soft white light of that pearl of great price will shine forth and be brighter than the noonday of all human power or glory. Do you see why there must be secrecy? Do you begin to see how in the hypnosis of the human mind, the temple (John Smith) has grown into a place of power (imaginary, of course), stupidly assuming the ability to do, to create and to change things? Then suddenly the John Smith finds that he has no real power, and that, even more, the John Smith temple can be used for anything. It can be the stamping-ground for all sorts of evil and sickness, it can be filled with all sorts of disease — it can be filled with filthy parasitic growth and can do nothing about it. His body is susceptible to all this so long as it is run on the thought plan. Comes the Revelation of the Trinity, and then the pattern is completely changed, in order that the new consciousness may be a fit dwelling-place for the Lord. Do you begin to see now what it means to “Be still and know that I am God,” instead of trying to change things — to change the shape of the ice, or to patch up the old garments.
When you appropriate this revelation, your body is automatically transfigured by the presence of this Fatherhood degree — it is changed and made Flesh and made new. “And the glory of the Lord fills the house” (consciousness), and it comes out through all the openings of the temple. Every atom of expression is filled with Light, and you find your temple (John Smith) illumined — the struggle is over. “Who told you you were naked” — (stripped of all the necessary things for your happiness)? Why, “He,” “She,” “It,” “but,” “if,” and “maybe” — they all told you, and they will keep on telling you until this whole plan of human thought is finally disintegrated by the blending with the Father. All the lovely talents you possess — for “every man has his gift” — all the glorious you that has failed to come forth, is saved in this disintegrating process; the elements which have solidified about you as a pattern of evil are now disassociated and are reshaped into a new and perfect design. The grain of wheat smothered in a bushel of chaff has suddenly come into its own — it has fallen into the ground and rotted so that it could be made alive, so that it could change the pattern into a form which could carry out its new desires. So is your awakening to take place. How do I know? Because this message that I am writing was written to you — You — the reader — at this very moment. If it were not so, you would not now be pausing in holy contemplation — you would not be praising God that He had so spoken to you out of the pages of a book. Do you hear? — You who read?
Do you begin to see how the smashing of these obsolete patterns is taking place? In a strange and fantastic way, the old theology of orthodoxy really believed in smashing patterns, but they thought it could be accomplished only through physical death. They knew that, in order to enter Heaven, man had to change his present pattern, and that the only way to do it was to throw off the body. But in the light of the present revelation, we adhere to the Word of Jesus Christ when He says “Here and now.” And how does this necessary disintegration take place? The Lord says, “not by thought, not by might, not by power, but by My spirit.” By the spirit of this recognized Father Consciousness within you does this disintegration take place. As it begins to fall apart, you will find the light of this new revelation shining in its place and the seal will be placed upon your lips, your glorious talents and gifts will be freed from their imprisonment. You can go into all the world. You can go into any land, and the moment you set up the temple within yourself, you are established. Do you hear? For you have all that it takes to establish this temple of expression. You can be in the desert or in the city, physically alone, or with crowds. The moment you pitch your tent or set up your temple, your influence is felt. That is why you can cleanse the leper, raise the dead, heal the sick, etc. Do you begin to grasp the magnitude of this revelation? Transfigured, transformed by the uplifting of your consciousness — do you see? Do you hear? The new day confronts you. You go your way secretly, powerfully, without the bondage of person, book, organization or thing — you are free.
BREAKING THE BREAD
Five thousand hungry men, far from food and shelter. Five thousand men in the desert-hungry-calling for bread; and only five barley loaves. The nearest food depot miles away.
Dozen of empty vessels, all crying out to be filled -great, yawning, ugly black vacuums of debt and want, and only a few drops of oil in the cruse.
Great stretches of parched desert scorched by sun and wind-dry, barren, ugly, useless. Worthless, helpless, unwanted, crying for expression, and only a small desert water-hole under a scraggy tree, half-filled with poisonous water, and a mass of bone-dry seeds buried in the sands.
Any one of these pictures is enough to make the average strong heart quail and turn away with a sense of helplessness. “Why does God permit such terrible things to exist if He is All-powerful?” “Why do I have to continue always under an avalanche of debt and limitations, with never enough to do anything with?” “Why do I lie on a bed of pain, my body racked with loathsome disease?”
“I have tried and tried and yet no results come.” “Anyone could see that five loaves would not feed five thousand men. A loaf to a thousand? What good to even pause to consider such an absurd idea? What good to consider the empty jars when only a few drops of oil are visible?”-Thus man reasons, and thus he fails. Having drawn his conclusions in accordance with the best human understanding and wisdom, he abides by the results.
The first and great law of breaking the belief of limitation is, “Judge not from appearances.” We have heard it often, but we have never really heard it until we can do it. When you actually hear a word of Truth you can fulfill it. Taking your attention away from the appearance of things, or judging not from appearances, is not merely closing the material eyes and refusing to see that which you know —in your human thinking—is real. “Being absent from the body and present with the Lord” is actually placing the attention on the Invisible Source of All. This is neither as abstract nor as difficult as it seems at first glance. It is not a difficult thing through the process of your imagination to possess those things which are necessary for your wellbeing. It is not difficult f or you to imagine that it would be a simple matter to the All-Power to produce all the desires of your heart-seeing that it has already created infinitely more-right before your eyes. It is not difficult f or you to place your consciousness in the realm of Spirit, and there f eel the freedom of the All-Spirit, being lost in the immensity of light, and finding the hard outlines and forms of things all melting back into the infinite ONE—-out of which all things came into being.
After all, a moment’s thought will cause you to throw much of the limiting reasoning of human wisdom away. Just think of the infinite flow of water into the Universe. From the single drop to the mighty torrents, where does it come from? We can, by a slow process, trace it from one stage to another back to Primal Cause. Where did it come from in the first place? What is the nature of the invisible quantity of substance which constantly repeats itself in a never-ending stream of expression, and in an infinite variety of forms? Out of the same invisible realm of substance we see millions of different manifestations, just as out of the same garden plot we see a hundred varieties of seeds bringing forth as many different kinds of flowers and fruits, all drawing on the identical substance for their life. Why do a poppy and a grain of wheat, drawing on the same elements, bring forth such radically different manifestations? Who can answer except with the absurd reply, “It is the nature of the seed”?
Why should it seem strange, then, that man should make a conscious contact with this Infinite Power, and see it step up the process of time and bring out the instant manifestation of whatsoever is needed, instead of seeing it put through the limiting human thought process? Why should it be thought so absolutely outside the ken of possibility?
Further, why is it that you, the very reader of this page, will go into your garden and scatter a handful of seeds in the ground without so much as a mental effort as to how they are going to draw their substance out of the invisible? Pushing this idea back a little farther, you find it is because you have a perfect confidence that it can be done-not in a way you know, but in an unseen way. Somehow or other this tiny seed will be able to select the pigmentation of color and the qualities for its own expression. And you do not find this strange; it has ceased to be wonderful. It is natural. You dismiss it. The handful of seed is all that is necessary for you presently to reap a harvest that many men with many baskets cannot gather in.
Yet if someone said, “There are five loaves to feed five thousand hungry men,” you would immediately place it under the head of miraculous-something outside the laws of Nature and life. Why should it be thought more difficult to increase one substance than another? Well, you scatter your seed with abandon, and with absolute faith that its increase is assured; you give it little or no thought after it is sown. But if you were to attempt to increase the loaves you would be concerned to such an extent with the manifestation that the law would not operate.
If you have five seeds and want to increase them to five thousand, you do not lay the five seeds on the table and pray over them. You do something. You cast them into the ground. There is no wondering or questioning the action. After you have abandoned them in this way the work on the outside is done; the next move must be from the realm of the Invisible.
When will you, you who read this page, open your eyes and see what is going on all about you? When will you start the flow of substance by taking your attention away from the symbol and placing it on the substance back of the symbol? In other words, when will you cast the seed into the ground of Spirit and let the Invisible Power of the Lord work upon it? When you drop the seeds into the ground, you have already given thanks-perhaps not in words-for the harvest. You have actually accepted your good-your increase-your fulfillment -and yet you have seen nothing. But you have obeyed the law, you have not asked for a sign—-knowing that the “signs will follow, they do not precede.”
When Jesus, the Master, saw the five thousand and the five loaves He said to his disciples: “Give them to eat.” The disciples-even as you and (immediately looked at the problem before them and in the most intelligent manner asked: “Where can we get the bread?” Over and over the word is spoken to us-yet the deaf ears hear nothing. When the Voice commands, it should be sufficient to cause you to move into action; for it will never say “do,” “go,” “be,” “have,” or any of the commands, unless wrapped up in that very word is the means of expressing the command in its fullness.
Strange as it may seem to the human sense, man is always in possession of enough to start the increase which will unfold or unroll until it has filled every empty thing. Hence, in the desert, five loaves were “seed” sufficient to increase the manifestation unto the need.
Jesus took the five loaves and blessed them. His blessing was one of pure recognition of the infinite increase, or the infinite abundance of substance—-“he blessed and brake, and gave. . . .”
He disregarded absolutely all appearances-“he blessed and brake, and gave”-and he kept on breaking the bread until everything was filled and there was enough and to spare. His attention being away from the appearance of things all the while and placed on the invisible. The very invisible out of which the tremendous increase of your seed planting took place last spring. Only his attention was so conscious of the Presence that the time lag was wiped out and it became the glowing, vibrating Now of Spirit.
“Borrow vessels, not a few”-the same power blessing, recognizing-the infinite source of substance, looked away from the few drops of oil and began to pour it out just as it had broken the bread. And presently out of the invisible source of all things the flow of oil came in such abundance that everything was full to overflowing.
The only benefit of these parables is the direct application to your present manifestation. Many people stand in the place, symbolically speaking, of the Master with five thousand hungry men and five loaves, or with hundreds of empty vessels and only a few drops of oil wondering why they do not demonstrate abundance, not heeding the urge of Spirit to “Bless and break, and give”-to recognize the presence of the Spirit and begin the process of breaking and giving. Wherever you are, and whatever your problems may be, you have the five loaves necessary, or the few drops of oil, and you can “Bless and break, and give.”
All three steps are necessary. You are doing the same thing constantly in your garden, whether consciously or unconsciously. Your garden is brought forth in just this way. You realize that half the joy of your garden is the giving of its rich harvest to others, yet many people in the Truth imagine that the giving is something entirely apart from the getting. It is only by making a constant outlet for the expression of good that more can flow into your life. It is reasonable to believe that the increase of anything would stop if it had no outlet. We notice in the five loaves and five thousand men demonstration that bread was given as fast as they came for it. It was not all manifested at once and then passed out. Your substance does not have to be mountain-high before you can give it out-in fact, if the flow is not kept open, the increase stops.
It is a glorious revelation that you, just where you are, can begin the process of breaking and giving the bread of life and see the endless flow of substance making itself manifest to you and your Universe.
You can begin to see why the command of “Silence” is so essential. Why, the great prayer is “Be still and know that I AM GOD”-not the human limited power, but that which can step up the time lag and make the NOW of the manifestation appear. The power which is back of this potent statement “You say it is f our months until the harvest, but `I’ say look again.” Only those that have eyes that have been opened to the reality of being can see the harvest where the human sense says planting has not yet even taken place. “Having eyes, ye see not; having ears, ye hear not.” “Awake, thou that sleepest.” The new dimension is edging into your picture.
Do you begin to see the futility of keeping the attention fixed on the few drops of oil, or the five loaves and the hungry masses? Bring this right down to your problems and a door will open to you. A new joy will fill you, for you will discover that you have all that is necessary to bring out the fullness of the invisible substance.
Beloved, do not let it be said of you any more “Ye seek ME, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled.” Don’t you see how perishable is the symbol but how unlimited is that which is back of it? “Labor not for meat that perisheth, but for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life.”
Why should you worry about the symbols-take your attention away from them or the lack of them and keep breaking and giving of the precious substance. Do not invert the process and reason thus in your hearts, “If I give I shall get,” that is a losing game-give because the overflowing substance within you seeks its level-that is, its complete fulfilment-automatically. You cannot help pouring out the gift of the Father when you begin to see that the infinite flow of joy is coursing through you, and through your Universe. Rejoice and be exceeding glad and let fall the drenching rain of recognition of the presence of God; let it f all on the barren desert of your life and the desert will blossom as a rose, for it has the seeds of infinite possibilities hidden away in its burning sands, awaiting recognition. It is well——“Break your bread and give it to the hungry multitude of desires in your life.”
BUT WHY DOESN’T IT WORK!
WE HAVE ALL asked this provoking question over and over again, – reasoning after this fashion: “I have studied”, – “I have worked”, – “I have given”, – “I have tried to live the life”, – and yet, – and so on. And of times we are lead through a dark forest of fear and mistrust, near the slough of discouragement.
Jesus, our Precious One, has given us the answer, – “Be not discouraged, I have overcome the world (My world).” “What I have done, ye also can do.” Each has a WORLD of human beliefs, quite different from any other, – a world made up of all the pictures of evil we have seen, or heard, or otherwise taken in.
Remembering the POWER of Jesus, – when you are about to give up, it may help to recall that even He was “driven into the wilderness” of his subconscious mind and was there faced with His pictures. There He remained for forty days, – but when He emerged, He had risen to a NEW level.
So be not discouraged, for “at a moment you think not, I come”, – and at that moment the Desert and the Wilderness will blossom as a rose. Regardless of appearances, that moment may be nearer than you think.
Once even Jesus seemed to forget the present Power, when He said to the Centurion, “I will come and heal him”, – and the Centurion answered, “Only speak the WORD”. So take heart, – and “Stand and SEE”.
If you had a crystal and superimposed upon its surface a transfer stamp of a Chinese Dragon, – and then sat down to contemplate the LIGHT in the crystal, you would have to see it through the Chinese Dragon.
We superimpose every problem we have on the surface of the “no problem” God. The answer already exists. We make up or create a problem (which is the only thing man can create), – and then work it out to the “no problem”, – or what we call healing. That is, we merely return to the original state which existed before we superimposed the “Dragon” we believed in as real on the crystal.
There is no problem in God. All problems are created and sustained by human thinking. You can neither add to nor take from the WORD, the PERFECT CREATION of God. If you attempt it, you only add to your plagues or take away from your peace of mind.
Symbols, things, come and go, – but the WORD shall not pass away. Therefore, if all the symbols of money were made null and void, nothing would be taken from the sum total of God Consciousness. All substance would still exist, – and another symbol would be brought out, which could turn the first symbol into a Dragon.
All values are in human thinking. Diamonds are held in line by not releasing too many on the market. If they were too plentiful, they would have little value, – and yet nothing would change in the diamond, – all its qualities would remain intact.
Break the human thought and the picture sustained by it will disintegrate, – no matter what its nature or intensity.
Jesus looked through the pictures and saw the ‘fields white’. Strange, too, that the laborers are few, – yet so many want to reap the good of life. But if they cannot SEE it, they cannot “thrust in the sickle”.
So if you are in the wilderness and are about to plunge into the slough of despondency, – “stand” a little longer, remembering that Jesus overcame His world, – and you can and will do the same, for He said you could.
CAMILLA
CAMILLA is not a story book character, she is not a creature manufactured to suit the issue, she is a real, live woman – – a nun, living in an old grey stone convent which is situated on a beautiful mountain which overlooks the winding Moselle River.
We met her one morning coming from the little chapel where she had been at prayer. It was a clear morning with a high blue sky, the faint perfume of wild mountain flowers and vegetation was in the air – – the year was at spring. As she stepped out into the open she seemed to fit perfectly with the setting, as if she were the personification of youth eternal. As she passed us she did not shyly cast her eyes to the ground, but looked up at us with wide blue eyes – – eyes full of lovely fearlessness, eyes full of depth and wonder; eyes of youth with the wisdom of the ages shining through them. This woman had youth in her grasp – – clear, firm, white skin with a transparency to it; lips red and full of expression – – youth was so evident that it made itself felt.
“Not a minute over eighteen,” said one of us. But Camilla was a woman who would soon count her years sixty. Later in the day I talked with her, and here is how she did it.
“At twenty I found myself practically an old woman, both in mind and body. I was weary and life was more or less of a burden to me, and it was at this time I became a nun. Soon after I began to study the ‘Word’ it came to me that I had never really lived, that the sense of fleeting youth which I had was nothing but a shadow – – a shadow of the real youth which was eternal and everlasting. I soon realized that God could not grow old, not in the sense of decay; that nature never grew old – – she renewed herself annually – – and gradually I came to know that if God could not grow old, that Man – – His idea and image and likeness – – could not age.
“In seeking the Kingdom of Heaven first, we are told that all things shall be added to us. In seeking the Kingdom of Heaven we are seeking youth, joy, harmony, happiness. The Kingdom is not made up of aged persons, it is vibrant with youth eternal; and finally I began to realize that I was a part of the Kingdom of Heaven and that in reality I was only seeking my true self.
“‘Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you; ask and ye shall receive,’ so I went forth seeking the real life. As God was everywhere present I found Him expressed in all nature. I found Him expressed in His universe – – and I was of His universe, in fact I was a part of it – – not apart from it. Just like the lovely force which impelled the rose to cover her vines with snowy white blossoms, I found that power growing and growing in me, swelling up in me, until one day I felt the complete thrill – – the ‘Divine spark’ – – which awakened in me and made me feel this rejuvenation taking place. God is everywhere and He is life eternal and youth eternal. If He is eternal youth and is everywhere I could literally bathe in youth. Not only that, but I felt I was a part of the whole scheme and drew my life, my vitality, my youth, from the same source which impelled the whole plan. Yonder on the mountain the grey mist hovered and swayed over the crest, the sun plunged through it and then the blue patch showed in the distance. The heather on the foothills was like a flash of purple, the white hawthorn tree glistened in the warm sun, and I a part of it all, vibrated with youth eternal.”
“I learned to love it all – – love the whole plan like one loves the members of his own household – – nothing was unlovely when viewed rightly and everything yielded to the touch of it gentleness – – the touch of love. If it rained I went about my duties with a feeling that everything was being purified – – that everything was being filled full of purity – – and I too drank deeply of purity. If the sun poured down upon me, I felt it making a halo about me of pure gold – – gold that would endure. I felt it sifted joy all about me and filled the throats of the birds with glorious notes, and so I sang and thrilled for life. If the wind blew and raged about, I was happy yet in the thought that things were being changed about. This was a readjustment; old dead leaves were caught up and carried off – – dust was moved from secluded corners – – readjustment was taking place – – and so I felt the readjustment enter me – – the power to say, ‘Not mine – – but thine be done.’ In winter when the snow fell I knew that everything in this universe was busily engaged working and studying, unfolding and getting ready for greater growth.
And so I learned from the weather that after all it was but for a lesson to us – – that we should rejoice regardless what the manifestation was. Further I began to realize that not only was I seeking youth, happiness, harmony, but that I was youth, happiness, harmony.”
Just then a band of happy youngsters came running up the hill and caught Camilla in their arms – – grabbing onto her long black skirts – – youth had sought youth and found it and bore her off down into the flower – – dotted valley. Camilla was sixty – – the world called her sixteen.
Celestial Mechanics
MY FATHER worketh hitherto and I work
First the celestial mechanics and then “I work”; the mechanics of expression will take care of themselves. Expression becomes automatic-and inspirational.
At every instance of the actual operation of the LAW, Jesus made it plain He could do nothing, and had to step aside and let the “Celestial Mechanics” take place—that is LET the LAW—-the LAW of God operate in the Kingdom of heaven. This will not be apparent as long as man tries to assist by either taking thought or trying to reason a situation out.
Before him he has a picture which is set in the vise of human belief, and has long since lost the last vestige of fluidity. When he sees this he will stop trying—and return unto ME—to the FATHER or to the UNIVERSAL INTELLIGENCE, instead of relying on the pseudo intelligence of human reasoning. WHO BY TAKING THOUGHT CAN MAKE THE THREE DROPS POUR INTO INFINITE STREAMS-OR BY ‘TREATING’ CAN MAKE THE FIVE LOAVES COME FORTH IN SUCH ABUNDANCE THAT THERE ARE TWELVE BASKETS OVER AFTER EVERY THING WAS FILLED?
No human mechanics can do this. It has to stem from the celestial or God operation. When the human mind stops all efforts and returns to the source of all movement-then it moves upon him, as the LIGHT moves upon the face of the deep and reveals.
The mechanics take place automatically, and man finds himself doing the right thing even under the most untoward circumstances. He finds that through the impossibility of human belief the possibility of the Presence suddenly appears, as the sun suddenly absorbs the light of a million candles. Did you ever see a powerful searchlight at noonday pointed at the sun? Exactly the same thing happens when a man returns to the ONE. It completely absorbs the manifestation of human thought.
When the action of the human mind is stopped, then it is that the action of man blends with the ONE action, and manifestation automatically falls into place—“my Father worketh and I work.” The reflexes are automatic, natural, and move in the direction of complete accomplishment. Man unconsciously and without the foolishness of imagination enters into a new dimension. He becomes aware of something he has not yet known, and begins to feel it moving through his temple body, coming into manifestation.
“And he planted a tree eastward, in the garden and there he put man.” This is the perfect Edenic state of the Permanent Identity. He can enter into this original state of harmony and experience the surge and the urge of the ONE power, and discover for the first time:—“before you ask I will answer,” because the Celestial Mechanics operate before the shadow or reflection is cast into the manifest world. Integrity is the key note. Having done all, stand and see—don’t help or assist in the Birth of the Child—“LET the child be born.” The action of God is automatic, unlabored, untrammeled and instant. It is the revelation of that which is. “The former things,” created by thought, have passed away. Sunk deep in ancestor teachings and beliefs, man fights appearances instead of devitalizing them by taking away the thought which supports them. The moment thought is taken away appearances fall into their native dust. “My Father worketh hitherto.” Then it is really done “and I work”—or let the manifestation come through. The mechanics take care of themselves automatically; they are revealed. “You do not need to fight.” You need to recognize that the Celestial Mechanics are already done. I go before you to prepare a place, an elevation beyond former beliefs. The eternity is God’s opportunity, not yours. Why not let Him have it for a change, and suddenly discover that you “shall run and not be weary?” The Celestial Mechanics operate from a level utterly unknown to human thought.
CHRIST AND EVOLUTION
Christ is not the product of evolution.” The Christ has not been evolved from a seed or monad. The I AM that I AM was before Abraham, and before everything else that has had anything to do with evolution, whether mental or physical. Many people conceive that Christ is virtually a product of the nineteenth century. Because more books have been written, and more lectures given, on Christ during the past fifty years, many think that Christ was practically created to accommodate a modern sense of religion, or to make some Prophet outstanding. “with or without a body I AM just as operative”; and so we are beginning to see that if every lecturer, teacher, book, and organization purporting to give the world the message of the Christ were to become non-existent, the Christ would be just as operative, and just as present. It is a wonderful thing to realize this. It will take out of the beautiful Truth all the personal teaching, and free you into the possibilities of the Inspiration, direct and without intermediary.
Because you become more aware of the Christ, He does not grow larger and more powerful. He has always been All, and you are coming more into alignment with Him. The building at the end of the street does not grow in size as you approach it; it may seem to, but it remains the same always. It is interesting to know the Unchangeableness of God, and a good thing to contemplate. Nothing can be added – no personal doctrine nor opinions can be added to HIM – and nothing taken away. There He stands – absolutely Changeless and Eternal.
You are merely in a process of becoming aware of that which is. As you begin to see this, you will find that what you formerly thought of as the Power coming down into expression is merely you coming into better alignment with the Unchangeable. As you meditate on this Changeless Power, and examine more and more the nature of it, you will see why the “signs” follow automatically; they could not do otherwise. You will begin to understand the difference between the old idea of making God do your bidding, and letting yourself come into a better alignment with the Unchangeable Power, which is ever active, and which is independent of every man-made theory, belief or opinion, book or teacher.
“Be still, and know that I am God,” carries more with it than a command – it carries Revelation; in the stillness of this contemplation, does one perceive the naturalness of Life? Most people consider the manifestations of God as unnatural and miraculous, and hence intermittent in their appearance, but we are beginning to see that the unnatural thing is that we, the children of the Almighty Ever-present God, should be subject to all sorts of human beliefs and laws.
It is this awakening that is now taking place, and it is the very joy of recognizing that Christ is not a product of evolution, that gives us the victory. Just think how wonderful it all is that Christ IS and that He is not the product of human research and study, but that before all this, and when the Morning Stars sang together, HE was, and is. Verily, verily I say unto YOU – what do “I” say unto you, Beloved? You who are reading this very line. I AM saying something unto you. The “I” which is not the product of evolution, but which is the seed-time and harvest, both in one, the Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh – I am “saying” something unto you, right now, that it is making your heart burn with the fire of the Presence. It is flaming up in you now, like a glowing pillar of light, and bringing to your remembrance all things whatsoever “I” have said unto you.
“I” have said many things to YOU, before you came through all the tiresome belief of being evolved through the endless incarnations, filled with terror and shame. “I” said many things to “You” when you were with ME, and “I” now hear you asking: “Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” Before the beginning of this world of human beliefs that you have hugged about you, drawn out of the mist of human acceptation and fear – judging from the appearances.
“Glorify Thou Me with the same Glory I had with Thee.” We are beginning to recognize that we have already tasted of this “Glory,” this radiance of the Soul – this something, the light of which is again breaking through the bars of out self-made prisons of thought.
We are not asking for a NEW glory, or for an evolved state of goodness, but the SAME glory – that which does not come under the belief in birth, growth, maturity, etc. We are asking for the manifestation of the Power within us, which says “Look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest,” that Power which finds its flower before the seed, and the harvest before the planting. All this beautiful symbolical language gives us a witness to the fact that Christ is not dependent upon evolution. The slow laborious efforts of the human thought trying to produce the perfect, or the increase, fall into the ditch before the Power which says, “Before they call, I will answer.” Before they formulate a request, I will supply it from the never-ending Source of the All. It sidesteps all the human intellect and reasoning, and gives a free and beautiful manifestation and showing forth of the Power, as Here and NOW, complete and changeless.
That which was true with you “before the world was,” is still true. It is simply that we are coming back to it, through the recognition of the Power which is not a product of evolution.
What is the good of talking about the things that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,” and then trying to square these manifestations with the Power that will bring them into manifestation by the narrow and distorted human reasoning? Who can teach you the way of Inspiration? Is there a course in any university that will produce this marvelous quality in you? Do you have any difficulty in perceiving Inspiration, no matter in what limited degree it is shown forth? “He was inspired,” you hear people say – and it beggars all description. No one can force Inspiration, make it, or create it, and yet it can be “let” into manifestation by a Recognition of the simple truth: “I can of mine own self do nothing; the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works” – and, before this Recognition, a whole lifetime of human limitations and restrictions goes down, like a house of cards in a hurricane. God does not have to be evolved in you – God is always there, awaiting Recognition.
“Behold I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” The Power is eternally there, urging upon you the Consciousness of its Presence. Urging you to open unto ME and “let” that transforming influence into expression – that which suddenly changes everything at His coming. Suddenly, as a thief in the night, when you are least expecting it all – in the twinkling of an eye; it happens before you can breathe – this Power, which is above evolution, brings Itself into manifestation, and the thousands of beliefs and appearances must fall into the limbo of nothingness. “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.” I say unto you, “Lift up your eyes.” Can you for a moment imagine just what must take place in the space of time between “I say,” and “Lift up your eyes”? It is no greater, and no more upsetting to the human belief, than that which can and will take place in you, when you recognize this Christ within you as something real instead of something that you have to grow to, and something that has to be evolved by the slow centuries of human thinking and reasoning. “Behold I make all things new.” What must take place in the old worn-out beliefs and their manifestations, when the Power that makes all things new comes into manifestation – instantly and without the slow process of evolution, or growing, or creeping, along through the jagged channels of experience? What is experience to the Power that is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity?
“Heaven and earth are full of thee” – and you are in earth, and then suddenly you are in Heaven, and so you are filled with the Lord, and, if you are filled with the Lord, what else is there for you to be filled with, and what human analysis can evolve this Lord into something that He has not always been, and is? It is marvelous how the Light is flooding over us – I as I write this to you, and you as you read it. “Blessings, blessings, blessings, so many we cannot count them,” foe Heaven and earth are filled with the Lord, and His blessings. The blessings that do not have to be evolved by a slow, long process of human reasoning and belief, but which are eternally waiting to come into manifestation in answer to that state of consciousness which has discovered that, “Before they ask, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will give it unto them.” That is pretty quick, and it is wholly outside of the ken of the human reason to cope with. There is nothing in the intellect which can make it possible for a man to be answered before he asks – and so it is charged off to the “unnatural or supernatural.” It is called a miracle because it has set aside a human belief. Now we are learning that it is natural, because it is redeeming a human belief, and freeing us from the narrow confines of that belief, causing us to see that it is so before we asked. It is so, that Christ, the I AM, existed before anything else existed, and it is also true that this Word is becoming flesh, and is dwelling among us NOW.
Heaven and earth are becoming one – the Word is becoming flesh, and is dwelling among us. “You are in heaven, speaking to those on the earthly plane of existence.” We are all caught up to the height of this Recognition of the Presence, and are speaking the freeing word of Life and Changelessness into the world of expression. It is Wonderful!
“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep,” “not discerning the body of Christ.” It is marvelous to know that when we stop looking to the body of beliefs and turn our attention to the Body of the Father within, and the body of the Christ, the embodiment of the Word made flesh, we are instantly healed, and lifted up to a place where health is a natural and normal state of life. Many are sick because they perceive their own human sense of body, and find it full of ills to be cured and healed, and many are completely asleep to it all. “Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light” – awake and arise from the dead! The Christ that shall give thee Light is the Christ whose body you are invited to perceive. The perfect vision shown to you on the mount of vision – the perfect stature of the Christ within you. Turn you attention to this Perfect Body of the Christ and perceive its perfection, and these manifestations will take place in you. It is Wonderful!
“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” This is the Christ body, or the embodiment of the Christ, which you are invited to contemplate. It is the contemplation of this body which raises the cripple up from the temple gates and makes a fine strong manifestation out of a rack of disease and limitations. Perceiving this body of the Christ is the thing that will change your “vile” bodies to bodies of Light, and which will deliver you from the body of death; many other things will take place because you have looked upon, and perceived, this body of the Christ as it is, and not as some evolved product of the human imagination. The Word must become flesh and dwell among you, and only when it does is it real and true; otherwise you have an imaginary heaven and an imaginary God, both of which are useless to you on the earth plane. But when you begin to perceive the body of the Christ, you find it permeating the very fiber and tissue of your body and universe, and the manifestation of the Word becoming flesh takes place, and it is well.
“You shall eat My body and drink My blood” – you shall find a full and plenty of everything desirable in this body of the Christ which you are asked to perceive.
“Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.” Christ shall show you the Power of this new and wonderful Body, and shall give you the Light of the New Day and Revelation. Suddenly the belief in an evolved Christ gives way to that Christ which was, and is, and ever shall be – eternal in the heavens, filled with grace and truth, filled with the Power to make Himself manifest. “Christ is not the product of evolution.” Christ is HERE and NOW a reality, to be perceived and LET into expression in the flesh. It is Wonderful! And So It Is.
THE CHRIST MASS
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
“Of the increase of His Government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal the Lord of hosts will perform this.”
The great and glorious Celebration of the Birth of Christ is again taking place in the stable of your heart. You are at the point of recognizing anew, the momentous event that is taking place within you. You are again awakening to the glorious revelation of the Light within. You are singing the song of joy and thanksgiving. The voice of joy within you is singing silently, as it magnifies the Lord within, the newly born Christ.
Why are you singing?
Just because you cannot help it – your joy gushes up and out into expression automatically. “Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow,” is surging through your temple, entering into every vein, nerve, bone, and life. The Word the unseen Word, is becoming flesh; is coming into manifestation by reason of the Birth of the Christ within you. “Peace on earth” -peace be to all the earthly thoughts and fears. Peace, peace – the whole realm of the manifest is being flooded with the Light of the Christ within you.
Why all this rejoicing?
“The government shall be upon His shoulder” – the government of your life. All the cares and worries, and excitement of trying to live, and arrange, and plan, suddenly drop from you onto the shoulder of this newly born state of consciousness. The government of your life and affairs shall no more be at the mercy of the mistaken human reasoning, but shall be upon His shoulder; the shoulder of the Christ.
The child that is born in the manger becomes the Father within, for He is The mighty God, The everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace. All these names for the Christ have their definite meaning to you, as you go from one to another, in bringing out the glorious heritage of man.
“For unto us a child is born” – man is beginning to Recognize the wholeness of creation – the holiness, the completeness, and that how, to this completeness, this US (the heaven and earth as one), is the new and glorious revelation made. “For unto US a child is born.” No doubt; no question about the possibility of the event. The birth-pains are over; the sorry hours of travail are gone; the child is born at the moment when you are able to Recognize that such a gift is yours, and that by Divine right you are entering into your inheritance incorruptible, which fadeth not away and is eternal in the heavens. It is all Wonderful!
Be still and watch one hour at the holy event. Bathe in the Light of it all – the pure Recognition of the Presence in all His glory and majesty and fullness. The tatters and rags of human belief are dropping away from you, the heavy bondage of things slip off from you. You are casting your burden on ME, and bearing the burden of Light and Revelation away into expression.
When you come to Recognize that the only reason for all this symbology is to make the Revelation of Life to YOU, you begin to see the import of it all. The story becomes replete with manifestation. The moment you recognize that this Divine Event has taken place in you a newness of purpose and expression come into being. It is as if one had a million-volt electric lamp shut in a small box. As he tears away the box, the light floods out automatically, and fills all space. Automatically it expands without effort. The box that shuts in your light is your failure to recognize that this thing is personal, and is taking place in you. Yes, I know you are a worm of the dust, and all that, and are not worthy, and that is why the story is shown as taking place in a stable. You are worthy enough, if you are big enough to Recognize the Christ, and stop discounting your beautiful manifestation. No matter how prodigal it has been or to what depths it has sunk, the Recognition of this EVENT, as actually taking place in YOU, will tear away the narrow confines of belief, and release the Manifestation. It is Wonderful! Yes! His name shall be called Wonderful, for the Christ within you is filled with wonderful gifts and things “that eye hath not seen nor ear heard,” and revelations that have not yet entered into the heart of man. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is Good.” You are invited to partake in this glorious thing called LIFE. We are not asking for something unnatural and unreal, but merely Life expression as Life, and not as some miserable existence dependent upon chance and change.
When you partake of the holy bread of Recognition; when you eat the body and drink the blood – that is, when you actually accept the inspiration of the Christ, which is to lead you into all things – and eat His body – begin to Recognize God in the flesh as a reality, instead of an imaginary substance in the skies – then the marvelous thing begins to take place which is written: “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.” The borders of the tent (your expression) are enlarged, and you are able to see the far-reaching effects of this government of the Christ within. It is Wonderful! It is the automatic and natural action of Christ, accomplishing, “by the way ye know not of,” that which is impossible for the human mind to accomplish. It is the Impersonal Life becoming personal, and the redemption of all the entangled and snarled up beliefs. It is the freeing Spirit of the Presence which takes away the condemnation, and fills everything with the “increase of His government and peace.” Then the miracles flow naturally and normally into expression.
“David” is the BELOVED. And so on the throne of the Beloved shall be the increase. How can you help sitting on this throne of the Beloved, when you see the wonder of it all, and the glorious possibilities of the Divine Event? The narrow confines of the human belief burst asunder, and you are freed into the new day of expression of joy. It is Wonderful! “For unto us a child IS born.” The Event has taken place, and you are ready to partake of it all.
“The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it.” Then why question how it will be done? The ZEAL, the automatic power of the Lord of hosts, with His ways and means that no man knows of, brings this to pass in you. The ZEAL of the Lord of Hosts will perform it. Do you hear? You who read this line. When anyone asks again, “How can these things be?” you can be still and know within your heart of hearts, and on the throne of the Beloved, that the “zeal of the Lord of Hosts WILL perform it.” The Automatic Power of the Recognized Christ will perform it, whatever that “IT” is, by ways and means that “no man knoweth of” – why worry or fret then? Truly the government shall be upon His shoulder. It is Wonderful! Now you know what it means to say, “It is Wonderful!” It is the Name of the ONE, and it is the Name in which rests the Power of bringing the “Dry land” into manifestation.
Yes – “For unto us a child is born” – this Christ Mass is being celebrated for the Recognition of this Divine Event taking place in you. Until it takes place in you, it will only be a symbol, or the re-enactment of some historical event. But when it happens to you, then it becomes living, and real, and marvelous – filled with light and wonder. It takes place again and again, as we become more aware of the Allness of God; and each time more Light and Illumination come forth into concrete manifestation. “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” It is Wonderful!
The Magi of the material world will finally see the light of your star, and will come from afar and lay their gifts at your feet. “And when they opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh.”
All the things you have been asking for so long come into alignment by the taking place of this Divine Event. The very things that have proven so elusive and impossible of attainment are presented as gifts. The Wise Men from afar, who were so hard to contact, come to you as soon as you begin to Recognize the Power of the Christ within. “Be not afraid it is I” – The Christ, the Power within you, waiting for you to “Claim your right, and press your claim” into expression.
How this all falls into line with the law. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” It is all the reverse of the old idea of seeking God in order that we might demonstrate some things. It is an outpouring of the gifts that belong to you, instead of an attempt to wrest a “living” away from life. Yes, Beloved, this Inheritance Incorruptible is something more than a theory, it is a real live tangible thing – a thing of flesh and blood. The Power that manifested itself in the flesh said, “Handle me and see me; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see ME have.” We are all tired of theoretical heavens and promises, we want the gift of Christ in the Flesh, the resurrected Jesus, and this is what is offered us, when we are unafraid enough to let the Divine Event take place within us; when we are dumb enough to know nothing but the simple Love of God, and are unafraid enough to stand and see the salvation of this Inner Lord. It is wonderful and marvelous; you can do it, and you will, because you have come to this place of the Impersonal becoming the Personal. By first letting go of the personal notions, conceptions, and beliefs, you found the Universal, and this very Impersonal Universal has personalized itself in you. “Not my will, but Thine, be done,” transmutes the limited sense of human will into the Divine, and this Will is always done by a way, and through a means, that ye know not of. It is Wonderful! This very Impersonal Life becoming personal, brings with it the Power of the Impersonal, and enthrones Christ as Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
“The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth rejoice.” Do you hear? “Rejoice,” it says – let every particle of your being rejoice at the Presence of this Power within you and without you, and beside which there is none else.
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” When you are lifted up to the point of Recognition that the Father is actually within you, and that this Divine Event has taken place, you automatically function into a new level of things and manifestation. If you are lifted up to a new height, you automatically partake of that which belongs to that height. If you were in the basement, in the dark, and were lifted to the roof, in the sunshine, you would automatically partake of the sunshine and all the warmth and beauty of it. In other words, you would, by being lifted up, draw all that to you, effortlessly and without trying. “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men (manifestation) unto Me.” Do you begin to see why we “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven,” in order that the things may be added as a natural and usual manifestation, instead of trying first to get the things and then trying to establish a Kingdom of Heaven? It is Wonderful! The man in the deep, dark basement of human belief must be lifted up to the new level, and then the things will be added and drawn to him. But most of us insist on bringing the things into the basement state of life. If you insist that evil is real, and you desire to destroy it, at the same time saying that “God created all,” how will you answer for this attempt to destroy something?
Beloved, the glorious Christ Mass Morn is breaking over you. NOW. The New day has come – the new Star has risen. “Unto US a child is born.” Do you hear?
CHRISTMAS
“FOR UNTO us a child is born, and his name shall be called Wonderful, the mighty, the counselor, the everlasting, and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and of his reign there shall be no end.”
So beloved to you who read this page, at this very instant great floods of spiritual light are breaking over you. The soul of you arises at the blast of the silent trumpet, and the glad tidings are proclaimed throughout your Universe. The picture of history and legend that you have cherished so long in your heart has suddenly come to life and the divine event takes place within you—within the manger of your heart. You, the poor worm of the dust, the sinner, the outcast, are actually the lowly manger wherein the Christ is born. His name is to be called Wonderful, and the government shall be upon his shoulders. The government of what? The government of your life. The poor struggling sinner who has so long been under the law of “When I would do good, I do evil,” he it is who suddenly sees the star in the East and goes towards the stable of his own heart and finds there at this glorious instant the divine event taking place.
And the government of your life is to be upon his shoulders. All the worrying and trying and effort fall away. “Cast your burden on Me and I shall sustain thee”; “Lean on Me”; “Come unto Me,” a hundred invitations are given to the struggling man, but, until the divine event takes place, he turns a deaf ear to it all, unable to see how it can possibly take place. The quickening of the Father within. The recognition of the Divine Sonship. The glorious revelation of the at-one-ment with God. “Yet in my flesh shall I see God.” All these and a hundred more testimonies hover about the new babe like angels of the Lord. Enfolding the universe of the newborn in the soft folds of their wings. It is wonderful. Heaven and earth are full of Thee.
The struggle is over. “He that loseth his life shall find it.” He that loseth his personal life, his life of separateness, in the immensity of the All-life shall find the real meaning of Life; shall find the hidden manna and the living waters, and shall never hunger or thirst again. Then if your will be lost in the Divine Will or if your human governing be given over to the Christ, then your will becomes His will and His will becomes your will, and you see the new regime setting in.
The glorious heralds of the New Day go forth and proclaim it to the uttermost parts of your sin-bound Universe. The prisons of thought are opened and the prisoners are set free. There is great rejoicing in the land, for you that were dead are made alive.
“For unto us a child is born, and his name shall be called Wonderful.” His name shall be called Wonderful. Do you hear? Do you feel it? You who read this page, you? Blessings, floods of blessings, holiness, glorious swirls of illumination are yours—–the heavenly hosts are descended unto you. You are in a blaze of light or revelation in the glorious NOW. The soul of you at this time is singing “Glory Hallelujah. Christ is born.” Not in a far-off country, not in the dead history of yester-years, but in the glorious Now, right in the midst of the fear-filled life. Christ is born and the government shall be upon His shoulders. The wonder of it fills you with silence so great and powerful that you are lost in the immensity of it all.
The government shall be upon His shoulders, and it shall therefore be right and just and good. Fear not—it is well with thee. Let go of the personal striving. You are now about your Father’s business and this is the eternal expression of harmony and joy. A new sense of integrity will come to you. “Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in and when thou goest out.” The lazy, sluggish mind shall give place to fresh streams of activity. Like a frozen river that is suddenly touched by the hot tropic sun, the frozen river of your life shall burst forth into expression. Or, like a flood that passes through the stagnant waters of life, this glorious awakening shall sweep away all the scum and stagnation of human fears and thinking, and leave in its place the healthful waters of activity.
Be not anxious. The government shall be upon His shoulders, and it will be well with thee. Fear not.
“All the ends of the earth shall come.” The ends of your universe. They shall hear of the new birth and shall arise, and the kings shall come and lay their crowns and jewels at the feet of the new babe. The realms of human power, of human thinking, shall finally bend their knees to the new King.
Thus will the monarchs of Health, Wealth and Happiness, who have been so difficult to appease, come and lay their power down. No more shall they have dominion over you, for your life shall be governed from now on, not by a group of tyrants doling out a little happiness, health and substance to you, but by the Great Central Power of all—the Christ in the midst of you, and all flesh shall see it together, “For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your Redeemer draweth nigh. The limited concept of life shall be swept away. In place thereof is the Christ who says, “Before you ask I will answer,” instead of the tyrants of human thinking who required sacrifice of blood and fire before they could be moved to do ever so little for you.
“And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” When in your weakness, when in the recognition of your inability to accomplish the good you would, you come to the point of recognition of the Christ within, then you are “no more under the law,” but “are under grace.” No more under the law of what? The law of your human belief; the law of your human concept of Life which was full of so much trouble. No more under the law of “When I would do good, I do evil.”
“My grace is sufficient for thee.” My grace, my Divine Influence shall be sufficient for thee. The influence of the Divine surrounds you—it is above the possibility of failure or fear or harm. No wonder, then, that you are thrilling with joy. The long years of bondage are ended. The scorching path in the desert has terminated. You have come to the promised land. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Where is the MY of this promise and where is the thee? Do you not see how it all goes back to the Christmas; to the new birth of that which is Wonderful and upon whose shoulders the government shall rest? The government of the human personality shall be upon the Christ and the Grace of the Christ shall be sufficient for the human manifestation. Sufficient is enough. Do you hear, you who read this page? You? “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Sufficient is enough. Over and over this revelation comes to mankind, and at last out of it he perceives the wonders of the Divine Influence. The Divine Influence is that which causes the acorn to press its tiny shoot through the hard earth, and even through places and under conditions that are pronounced hopeless. This same Divine Influence is that which enables you to pass by safely. It is that which opens the doors in walls that otherwise appear blank and adamant.
This glorious quality of the Divine Influence which we call grace resides in the consciousness of the Christ Mind, and it is this very Christ Mind which you were told to “let” be in you. “Let the Child be born”—in other words, when we have the Christmas celebration within our own souls, then the Christ is born within us, then we begin to experience the law of Grace or the Divine Influence. We begin to see the old beliefs fall away. We begin to see that the legends of Father Christmas and the Christmas tree are truths told so that the uninitiate should not despoil them of their precious substance. They are the pearls which are not cast before swine.
The Christmas tree is only another way of expressing the Tree of Life which lies in the midst of the garden and upon whose branches are all good gifts, the Gifts of Spirit. Whosoever heareth the word will henceforth not be a beggar for the gifts of life, but will go within his own garden and take his own gifts. “All that the Father hath is thine—-“when the law of Grace is set free the law of limitation is made null and void. You will find then that the promise “Before they ask, I will answer” is something true and wonderful.
You are your own Christmas tree and your own Father Christmas. You are the center and circumference of your being. You stand in the center of your universe and at the uttermost point of your universe. Spirit is all, and only when man accepts his birthright and goes forward upon these new lines can he possibly know the joy and thrill that the truth about Christmas brings. When you realize for an instant “For unto us a child is born and his name shall be called Wonderful, the mighty, the counselor, the everlasting, and upon his shoulders shall be the government,” then you have taken Christmas out of the symbolism and gotten back to the soul of it. It ceases to be a day of gifts, with pudding and turkey—and a possible church service thrown in with a magnanimous prayer for the poor—and turns itself into a heavenly recognition of the Presence: flings wide the portals of a New year, a New life and a New field of attainment.
At the name of Christ every knee shall bend. At the nature or name of the Christ the knee of every human belief shall bend to do Him homage. Every so-called power shall bend before the One and Only Power, who rules by Grace. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” It is wonderful.
“Joy to the world (your world)
The Lord hath come.
Let earth receive her kind.”
Joy to your world—joy to your world—the Lord hath come. Lord of Lords and King of Kings is born within you. Born within your consciousness. Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and besides this there is no other. Not a little personal despot of a king, but a glorious consciousness that is one with the Universal God.
Everything is fused with the new—old idea, the birth of the Christ within you. You are filled with light and the radiance of the New Day.
Awake!—with the new birth man loses his fantastic idea of demonstrating God, and lets God demonstrate him. Lets the Light reveal the answer which was before the question. Sees the futility of demonstrating a thing which immediately disintegrates and returns to the endless source from which it pours.
COME – EAT AND DRINK
“COME, eat and drink without money and without gold.” The invitation is to all. It is written in such a way that “He that runs may read,” and yet we pass it by, and hurry along into the crowded city to beg for crust.
“The Cattle on a thousand hills are mine, and if I were an hungered I would not tell thee, I would slay and eat.”
“Suppose we compare money with the cows on a thousand hills. The cows belong to God, and so do the mines, and precious jewels. God is just the same in reference to all these things that are of the mineral kingdom as He is concerning those things which are of the animal kingdom. It is Wonderful! He said, ‘If I were an hungered, I would slay and eat.’ Well then, as with the things of the animal kingdom, so with the things of the mineral kingdom. God does not have to ask for anything, or for permission to use anything. He says, “The Cattle on a thousand hills are mine’; and I say to you, ‘The gold and silver and all other metals in a thousand hills are mine.'”
Buried deep in this beautiful illustration of the cattle on a thousand hills is the story of the infinite substance awaiting every man who recognizes that the God within him is the Christ Power, which possesses all things, even the cattle on a thousand hills. And hidden away in this simile is the far-reaching truth, that, if a man is hungry, he must partake of his own. “If I am an hungered, I would slay and eat” – shows the step necessary to be taken before man comes into his own. That which is yours, is yours, but not until you recognize it, and, if you do recognize it, then you can use it. You can, in the symbology of the scriptures, “Slay and eat.” That is where most of us have fallen down. We have said, “All that the Father hath is mine,” but we have immediately begun the process of “begging” for that which is ours. The Kingdom of Heaven is not taken by violence. “Except ye become as a little child, ye can in NO WISE enter the kingdom.” He that tries to climb up any other way is a thief and a robber. So it is with the beautiful giving to you of the cattle on the thousand hills. If you try to possess them by any other way than that of pure acceptance, as a child might accept its food, then your slaying and eating will be against the law, and you shall pay the penalty of misunderstanding your rights – no matter how hungry you may be.
The man who has said “The Cattle on a thousand hills are mine,” could also say with impunity, “If I am an hungered, I will slay and eat,” and no one would say him nay – they would only recognize that he was entirely within his own rights. “Claim your right, and press your claim.”
The invitation, “Come, eat and drink without money,” must be accompanied by the actual acceptance of the individual, if he expects to avail himself of the gift. It is of little use to “want to accept it”; there is something that “clicks” when he actually accepts and abandons himself to it, and does not build a wall in front of him, about making a demonstration or of using the power – all this has been relegated to the dump-heap of outgrown beliefs. Does the man who has the cattle on a thousand hills make a demonstration, every time he slays and eats, when he is hungry? No, he simply uses that which is his, and he asks of no man the right to do so.
Another man, seeing him with the cattle on a thousand hills, may also be hungry, and decide to slay and eat, but he cannot, or, if he does, he incurs the penalty for so doing, because he is breaking the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” He is still under the law, because he recognizes that God is divisible, and that He gives to some much, and to others nothing. He gives to every man (you included) exactly what he will accept from Him; no more or no less. A fountain gives to you just the amount of water you can take away in your vessel; no more or no less; but if you return again and again, with larger and larger vessels, it makes no difference. So it is with God. The invitation to “Come, eat and drink without price,” is also the wonderful revelation that the Kingdom of Heaven is free to all who will partake of it.
As long as a man is under the law of human belief, he feels the harshness of the Ten Commandments; they are heavy laws laid upon him, which curtail his every desire. When he is in the Spirit of the Presence HERE and NOW, he is no more under the law, and the commandments become merely statements of what is true. For instance, if a man knows that he has the cattle on a thousand hills, he also knows that at the same time, “Thou shalt not steal” – and so it will merely be a statement of fact that he will not steal, because he will have no need to steal that which is already his. The only reason the thief steals is because he does not recognize the infinite abundance that is his. He always thinks its the other man’s; and so it is until he recognizes that it is his. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!
“The gold and silver and all other metals in a thousand hills are mine.” Man must appropriate them if he would use them. It is Wonderful! Yet most people, while claiming this to be true, have only accepted it in theory, and so the actual truth of this law does not come forth. The “Word” must become flesh, to be of any use to you. “Yet in my flesh shall I see God”; and your “flesh” is your manifested world and universe about you, and it is into this very “flesh” that the “Word” must come as a living reality, and not any more as unseen spirit. “Claim your right, and press your claim.” “Ho, every one that thirsteth” – the invitation is sweeping, it is open to all. It is Wonderful!
Do you see how it is that we begin the new process of Life by this glorious Recognition of the Presence of God and His fullness? We can then say, “The cattle on a thousand hills are mine” – not to possess in the human selfish sense, but to use when we are “an hungered.” It is glorious! Are you afraid to go forth and trust this glorious power, which says: “I go before you and make straight the way”? Do you hear? I said “I” – the I AM goes before you (the body manifestation) and makes the way straight.
“Come, eat and drink.” Come, fill to overflowing the vessel of life, and let this filling expand the vessel into a glorious receptacle. “Enlarge the place of your tent.” “Launch out into the deep.”
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof: the world, and they that dwell therein.”
Do you begin to understand what it means to become one with this glorious Whole? With this understanding you will cease to talk about “Mine and Thine,” and will realize clearly that “all things are Mine, and Mine are Thine.” It is glorious and thrilling, this opening of the portals of the Kingdom of Heaven – the Heaven which Jesus told you was within you. “Look not, lo here, nor lo there,” is such a wonderful statement. It brings the glorious Truth home to you. “Look not, lo here, nor lo there,” for, “behold [do you hear?] the kingdom of heaven is within you. Do you hear? Can you accept it, or will you continue to try to make it so, by words and arguments? “Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.”
No matter how many times you have tried and failed – that is all nothing. One of these days you will PERCEIVE that the “cattle on a thousand hills are MINE,” and why this is so; and then, if you are an hungered, you shall slay and eat; you will not be making a demonstration or doing anything to show somebody the power, you will slay and eat because you are “an hungered” or because you have need of the “cattle on a thousand hills” at that moment in a different form. It is Wonderful!
“I Am here, I Am there, I Am everywhere”; I AM the fullness of all things, in all places; and that is the spirit which must be made manifest in the flesh, in whatever form it is necessary to manifest itself at that time. It is Wonderful! No wonder then we are told, “Go ye into all the world – take no thought of the script, the purse, the robe,” etc. Why is it necessary to take thought when you recognize that “I Am here, I Am there, I Am everywhere,” waiting to be called forth into expression whenever there is a need of Me? I AM everywhere, in whatever forms necessary at that moment, to neutralize the seeming difficulty or limitation, self-imposed by human belief. It is Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!
“Just what you can ask God for, God can give to you.” Do you hear? Do you see? Just what you can ask God for. You know the law of “Asking”: “Ask, believing that ye receive.” When you ask that way, that is just exactly what God can give you – or, rather, that is all you can accept, because that is all you have asked for. It is Wonderful!
“The things that are material, they are spiritualized, and the things that are spiritual, they are materialized. The heaven and earth are one, for the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ.
I have the victory, and so have you, if you only know it. Faith is the victory. You do not need to fear, fret, nor worry, when you know that you are on the side of Victory. When you know that you are on the side of Victory, you can go forth conquering and to conquer. You realize that God in one man is a majority. All you need to know is that God is within you, and you have nothing to fret nor worry about.”
Victory over the belief in limitation is but the revelation of the Allness of God which you have declared for so long. It is merely the spiritual acceptance (which you have already made) becoming materialized, or, in other words, seeing this God in the “flesh” – seeing this invisible consciousness made manifest, in whatever form needed, at that instant. It is glorious and wonderful, and filled with Light and Life.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights.” The gifts that comes down from the Father of Lights must not be put upon the open market, and dealt with as so much merchandise. The gift of healing is a free gift, and must be freely given, or it will be reduced to a mental process which is little better than hypnotism. The most difficult thing for the human mind to grasp is the fact that it can only get by giving. There is no reason to this sort of thing. In fact, it is diametrically opposed to all the human laws of gain, and yet there the law stands – only what you give away will you keep, and only by giving away will you get the increase. It is Wonderful! The human mind, hearing the law stated, sometimes thinks to “try” it, and so he gives, and awaits the returns – but nothing comes, and he has lost his so-called gift, because, in reality, he was not giving, he was only investing, and hoping for enormous returns, which come not. You cannot “give,” in the sense we are told to give in the Bible, without getting returns. No matter however much may be said to the contrary. No matter however much it may “hurt” to discover that you have not really given anything with all your giving. It is better to understand this, and learn the true giving or releasing of the infinite substance which flows through you. It is Wonderful!
There is no discouragement – you have made mistakes; you have committed sins of omission and commission, and you have done all those things that you should have done, but the Light which comes, when you recognize the Presence of the Spirit of the Consciousness of God, reveals a new order of things in your manifest world. It is Wonderful!
“When you cast your word or gift into the Universal Sea, and look to the Unseen for the return, nothing doubting, and not in a moral way, but in the way of Spirit, you will never lose.
There is no depression in the Realm of God, Depression exists only in the mind of man. All that ever was, is here and now in the fullness of the Presence of God.”
We begin to understand that the so-called world depression is merely in the mind of man. A country may be thrown into a state of depression because of the over-production of wheat, apples, potatoes, or any other commodity which is called the very necessity of life. Where is the depression then? The elaborate system of gathering in the shekels has completely disregarded the Truth of Life, but it has not changed the eternal fact that the Presence, in all Its fullness, is everywhere, and instantly available for the one who recognizes it. At the same time, it can be merely so many hollow, empty-sounding words. What then is the statement, “The cattle on a thousand hills are mine,” to the person who in his heart knows definitely that they are not his, at that they belong to somebody else, and he cannot get them – no, not even if he wanted and needed them very much.
Be still – do not argue. Surely God IS, and this Presence is enough for you – but remember: “He that is able to hold his tongue is able to take a city.”
That city which you are to take is the Consciousness of “the cattle on a thousand hills are mine, and if I AM an hungered, I will slay and eat.”
“Go thou and do likewise.”
CONCEPTION
MARY, THE VIRGINAL MIND, was over-shadowed by the Spirit, – and she conceived and brought forth Jesus. This mighty illustration is the key to ALL manifestation.
You are overshadowed by the Spirit, – the urge of God to find a Temple or a point of expression. Every desire that comes to you is that urge attempting to come into being-and all desires are good when properly interpreted.
But when the idea is passed through the thick veils of human belief it is still-born at best. The human mind places its interpretation upon the desire and in its effort to bring it to pass, descends to any level to accomplish it. Thus a bank robber’s original idea to possess the substance of life is as good as yours, but his interpretation is wrong. To him, the only means of expressing that desire is to rob a bank, and the law ensues. You may be so defeated by the human belief that your idea cannot possibly take form, – and then you are sent into the wilderness of despair.
On the clear, placid surface of the waters the NEW image is formed. When the consciousness recognizes its heritage and releases all its preconceived nothings of the how, the why, the when and the where, then this wonderful over-shadowing takes place.
Mary, the Virginal Mind, could not by any means understand how she was to bring forth a child without the offices of man, – and neither can you understand how the desires of your heart can come into being.
There are helps given you, and one of them is that “Mary pondered these things in her heart”. She kept the secret and contemplated the Power of the Almighty with its ways which are past finding out. And when you do likewise, the thing will take place, – the conception.
From the instant of conception, the new idea draws its embodiment unto itself. This does not have to come under the prescribed human laws of time and space. It can “look again” and see the fields are white, – in spite of all the findings of man who says it is yet four months to the harvest. The extension of the sight enables the awakened soul to see the finished product before it is visible to the eye, – just as this book is already complete while it is being written. The John Smith then lends itself as the temple through which the manifestation will come. The mechanics of the birth processes will take care of themselves.
Jesus always started with the idea that “it is consummated” before He asked. So sure was He of this fourth dimensional Power, He even thanked God for the completed and perfect manifestation before it was visible. He rested His case with the statement, “I know this is done”, – making a concession to the human thought of His listeners who thought something had to be done, in the form of verbal prayer. Your affirmation, as was His, should be a statement of a finished thing, and not a process of endeavoring to create a thing. He made the affirmation because He knew the thing was already formed in the Mind of God, but awaited the recognition and acceptance of Jesus (John Smith). The moment this recognition took place, the manifestation came into being.
The teachings of Jesus were by parable-but parables which were manifested in tangible flesh-and blood. All other teachers “talked” of heaven to come. Jesus showed forth the WORDS He spoke and delivered the manifestations to the earth.
When the masculine knowing and the feminine feeling and receptivity come together, conception takes place. The secret is protected from the vagaries of human beliefs which would “laugh you to scorn”, – but what can they do who see the manifestation, but fall down and worship God?
What can you do but surrender all the foolishness of human thought when you come into the Presence of God? What do you imagine you can do to change the Mind of God? Where did you get the desire you have for a NEW manifestation? Did it come out of thin air? If desire is not God pressing upon the diaphragm of your mind for greater expression, then from whence does it come and why? And if a particular desire were not peculiar to you, why would not every man have the same?
No two men having a given desire will bring out an identical manifestation. If you desired substance, the measure you bring forth would be different from the measure of every other man who desired the same thing. Each one brings out the degree they are able at that time to accept. What is wealth to one might be poverty to another, – and yet it is all one substance. No limitation is put on the measure except the degree of acceptance.
“In my Father’s house are many mansions”,many stages and states of manifestation. As soon as you have finished with one “mansion”, you enlarge the borders of your tent and move on to another. The degree of acceptance is wholly up to you and it is not determined by your human desires, – but by your ability to accept this wonderful revelation of Christ Jesus.
“Who did hinder you, that you should not obey the Truth?” You have blamed everything from birth on to the people and conditions about you, – and will continue to do this until you discover that YOU hindered yourself. No one holds you back, – no one stops the flow of Light through your body-temple. At first this is not easy to accept. It is bitter to the taste, – but sweet to the digestion. As a good surgeon cuts deep with the first incision instead of cutting away the difficulty bit by bit, so you rid yourself of the hateful habit of blaming everything in the world for your present plight.
As you stand today, you are the sum-total of your consciousness of God. If you do not have sufficient manifestation of Life, you can do nothing about it on the outside. It MUST be done from within.
The NEW idea must and will be born when the NEW conception takes place, – when you have recognized the urge within you as God coming into expression through your temple-body. The moment this takes place, the temple is filled with LIGHT and carries out the inner instructions. If it is told to “go into a City”, a NEW state of consciousness, and “there meet a man who will lead it to the banquet room”, it is ready to go or to do, without question. For instance, when the book, or the picture, is conceived in the invisible, it must and will pass through the temple-body through which the mechanics must be performed.
All of this is in the deepest secrecy. “Tell no man” must be brought to us again and again, – else the Herod comes forth and attempts to destroy the idea before it is able to stand alone.
The human mind in its darkened temple believes little actual good of itself and less about you. It is a “liar and the father of it” because of the terrible fear from the acceptance of the false law that it was “born of woman, few of days and full of trouble”.
The Spirit is like the “wind that listeth where it bloweth and no man (not ANY man, – teacher, priest or holy man) knoweth whither it cometh or whither it goeth”. Yet the human mind will attempt to plan a way for expression of God. He will think so hard and search far and wide for a solution or a possible “wind-fall” that”might change his life pattern. But not until he enters within, – into the Virginal Mind, – will he be able to feel the overshadowing of the Spirit and know that the conception of the idea has taken place. And this ‘click’ or conception will be so precious that the secret will be guarded. It is the pearl of great price, which when a man finds, he sells all, he releases every former notion, – and buries this NEW LIGHT in a field, a consciousness which is Virginal and which knows that “All things are possible with God”.
The understanding of the human mind concerning creation is so limited that it positively cannot accept the Word of Jesus of itself, and the “miracle” of manifestation can take place all about, but it would not be able to see or understand. “Here am I in the midst of you”. The disciples saw Jesus in His resurrected state for but a few moments because they could not sustain that state of consciousness.
Conception takes place through agreement. “When two shall agree as touching any one thing,
it shall be established on the earth.”
Any wonder, then, that you are commanded to “be still and know that I AM God”? When the jabbering human mind becomes quiet, then the Voice moves upon the face of the deep and out of this comes the dry land. Always the impossible, as the Immaculate Conception indicates ! Dry land coming out of wet water is enough to set the old human reasoning off at a tangent which will prove to itself the utter impossibility of such a thing taking place.
“I shall STAND upon my WATCH and SEE what the Spirit has to say unto me.”
Yes, you will cease the old begging and beseeching a tribal Jehovah and “be still upon your bed”, – and then the blessed annunciation will be made unto you, – “A child is to be born”, – a NEW and WONDERFUL, idea is to be set~upon the earth through you. It does not depend upon outward conditions. Sarah was ninety when the annunciation was made that she was to bring forth a child, – which caused Abraham to laugh long and loud. He positively knew it was impossible !
So the healing that you seek, – the old Abraham thought knows it is impossible, – that it just couldn’t take place, – and yet the annunciation is made to you. Can you accept it? Will you go within and magnify the Lord instead of spending time in human thought and appearances trying to understand how such a thing could or would take place?
What you accept comes to abide with you, – good, bad or indifferent. Likewise, what you reject is passed on into the oblivion of the race consciousness. The decision is with you.
Everything works from within out. It is always in the SECRET place, the HIDDEN place that the idea is conceived. Be still, then, and KNOW (do not try to know) that I AM God. My Ways are not your ways, for My Ways are as high above yours as the heavens are above the earth, – they are past finding out. That blessed event which takes place within you and brings to you a new and more wonderful idea of Christmas than ever before, is sacred and must be a secret thing until “the child is born”.
Draw close unto ME and I will draw nigh unto thee. See the naturalness of the omni-activity of Spirit in and through you. “Be not afraid, – it is I” no matter what old temples are torn down or set aside.
“Marvel not, then, ye must be born again!” The conception of your NEW-old self has again taken place in the heart. The moment it is recognized, it starts building its body. “For unto us a child is born, – and His Name (nature) shall be called Wonderful, – filled with Wonder, – the Mighty, – the Counselor, – the Everlasting”.
CONCERNING ANGELS and HEAVENLY HOSTS
JESUS SAID, “Think ye not that I could call upon My Father and He would send twelve legions of angels”. Had He called, some sixty thousand would have appeared, visible to the mob trying to destroy the only real teaching ever to come to earth. Do you believe this?
It is reported a terrible earthquake took place during the crucifixion, – the ground was rent, – the graves gave up their dead, – and the Saints appeared. Were they visible, – or imaginative?
And then we are told that the Heavenly Hosts surround us. Are they actual, – or is this mere symbology?
Did Jesus’ disciples see Him when He broke bread with them after the resurrection?
What took place when He said, “Look again”, and the fields were white, – setting aside the times-pace of four months until the harvest. What means this “Look again”? Haven’t we been scanning the horizons of human thought for ages and seen nothing but futility? And yet, “Look again” !
With our limited human senses we look through the reverse end of a telescope, seeing the close-at-hand as far-removed, – in other words, – the “four months until the harvest”. Now comes the command, “Look again”, with the single eye of spirit which sees only the finished thing.
Because we have no consciousness of a thing is no indication it is not true, – and because we cannot see a thing does not mean it does not exist. Only that which we recognize as possible can or does take place.
“Ten thousand thousand shall fall at thy right hand,… but it shall not come nigh thee”. How can this be? There is no answer from the standpoint of the three-dimensional mind. But it further says,
“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.”
Yes, I know all about the extended human sense of sight. It can and does show every evil thing in the subconscious mind, . . . disembodied entities, disembodied souls, antagonizing forces. The human mind which has been aping the Divine since Adam can seemingly perform everything God does. The wise men, soothsayers and magicians produced serpents identical to all appearances with the serpent produced by the Prophet, – but what happened? You recall how it was that the serpent of the Prophet swallowed the serpents of the magicians. The human mind can and does embody anything it recognizes and it can become so real and terrible as to destroy the mind that gave it birth and life. All creations of the human mind are evil, – but their existence depends wholly upon the sustenance given by continued attention.
To be rid of an “entity” which may be disturbing your life, all that is necessary is to deprive it of the thought substance of your mind, – just as you would deflate a balloon by releasing the oxygen in it. Demons and devils flee in all directions when once you “X” them out by the Power of Almighty God. A man writhing with delirium tremens certainly sees snakes that are real and alive to him crawling on his bed, – but the nurse and the doctor standing alongside do not see them. Where, then, are they?
We can see only that which exists an the particular level from which we are functioning. Any wonder, then, that we are told to “AWAKE”, “ARISE” to a higher level, – and then “LOOK AGAIN”. And the beautiful part of it all is that when you “arise” to a new degree of expression, you take nothing of the old degree with you. The former things are passed away, as far as you are concerned, – not even remembered.
We are told that “Heaven and earth shall pass away, – but MY WORD shall not pass away.” And then it is explained that You are the WORD made flesh, – YOU, the Permanent Identity, hiding behind the ghastly mask of John Smith or Mable Jones.
As LIGHT passes through a negative film, it produces a positive picture. As long as that LIGHT remains, it will produce pictures in reverse of its appearance. In a film negative, what appears black becomes white in the picture, and what is white becomes dark. And likewise, when the INNER LIGHT floods through the negative John Smith, all his color values are reversed.
And it says, – “YOU, – (yes, you), – are a NEW creature- (something that has life) – in Christ Jesus”. Do you believe this? Were not the negative conditions of the blind man reversed when the LIGHT poured through his consciousness?
To have all negative conditions of sickness and poverty in your life reversed, all that needs be done is to pass this LIGHT through the “negative”. We are so busy trying to eradicate the shadows of human thinking that we will not LET the LIGHT so shine. We have been “working” instead of EXPRESSING. The unlabored action of God does not work. And yet many people say, “I have done my work”, – or “I will work for you”. Jesus said, “Labor not for the meat that perisheth”.
Finally we are beginning to SEE. Yes, – we are glimpsing the Radiance of the Risen Lord. When our vision is sufficiently clear, we will see Him, even as the disciples finally saw Him for a brief moment when He broke bread with them. But they could not hold that consciousness, and so He disappeared from their vision. Where did He go, – since He said THIS is the Kingdom of Heaven, – here and NOW, – even within YOU? How much longer will it be before we are willing to hear?
It is said “On them the second death will have no effect”. So then, the Saints who arose from their graves, – the grave of human thought that killed the body, – are ALIVE and HERE. Perhaps you would like to see them, – but how can you if you do not believe? There is no particular reason why you should see them just because you are curious. Remember what happened to Pandora and the box, she was so curious that she opened it, – and let loose on the universe a million and one evil beliefs. The SOUL of you is incurious, for it knows. When it knows, it does not “talk”, – it SHOWS FORTH. No one who actually SEES anything beyond the human thought limitations will expose it. A film that is exposed before it is developed is ruined. “See that ye tell no man”, – but be certain that you SHOW.
One person praying, – actually praying, – and not voicing a long line of word pictures, – can and has changed a situation for thousands of others. “One with God is a majority,” Do you believe this? The answer is always “Yea, yea” or “Nay, nay”, – regardless of what words may or may not be used, and the results are directly in ratio to this statement.
Heretofore it has all been so impracticable, – so “out of this world”, – but NOW it becomes a reality in the life of ANY man who believes. Then what is the matter with us? Why do we continue studying and ‘working’ with the philosophies of the ancients? There is nothing ancient in God or Jesus. If “a thousand years are as a day” and vice-versa, what is to be said of the collected and amassed information we have gathered during the last two days of life since our Precious One spoke the Kingdom of Heaven into BEING?
At the NAME-nature-every knee shall bend. What is bending but the old human beliefs, – so weak with all their vaunted powers? Such wonderful POWER is given you, – not worked for nor earned. The old John Smith negative you brought out has such wonderful possibilities, All his shadows and dark spots are to be filled with LIGHT. These dark spots of limitations are automatically reversed when the LIGHT passes through them. If they seem more real and true than the LIGHT, it is only because we are hypnotized by human beliefs. On the Temple Beautiful the shadows of disease will melt into glorious decorations of God !
In that day of SELF discovery, you will find that the blacksmith helps the goldsmith, – although they are leagues apart as artisans. Everything will then “work together”, – and THEN is when you discover and (let’ the LIGHT pass through the negative of John Smith, – turning every shadow into LIGHT.
The negative says you cannot see, – or hear, – or move, – all dark shadows of limitation. It says you are diseased, – and poor, – and unhappy. But the darker the negative, the lighter the positive picture taken from it when the LIGHT is recognized. “Arise and shine, – for your LIGHT is come, – and the Glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” Please note the present tense “is”. For Heaven’s sake! – what is the matter with us? Why don’t we “return and let”, instead of trying and “working” with the negative thing? “When we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord.” So what have we to lose? “LET ME IN!” HERE I am, at the door of your consciousness, – knocking. Why not open to ME? If you do, – I will sup with thee, – and what a feast! – and ye with ME! All this lovely equality, – ye and ME !
All diseases and imperfections you ever experienced were merely the LIGHT trying to push out of your consciousness some horrible thought picture. All poison of hatred, greed and revenge must be pushed out of My Temple. Then why not LET them go, – release them, – instead of working from the outside?
“Who will save my darling”, – my old John Smith, – my masquerade costume, – from the fires of reality? Nothing will save them as long as you continue to see the negative as a negative. When you reverse your vision, – “presto!” the cancer, the lung trouble, the liver complaint, or whatever else you may have, no longer exists. The dark places become light, the positive comes forth, – because you let the LIGHT through your negative.
A sweeping symphony written years ago comes to life under the baton of a Toscanini. From our point of view, it may be only dots on lined music paper. Let the LIGHT shine through, – and it becomes a rapturous melody that lives forever. And all this is done by the swaying of a simple baton. So the negative John Smith, when the LIGHT is passed through him, becomes a beautiful symphony.
When will Jesus come? Well, – He is already here, and He will appear through the clouds of human thinking to anyone on that level of consciousness. Why did the disciples SEE Him for but a few moments? They had been with Him for three years, – and yet, when they walked with Him to Emmaus, they did not recognize Him because they had not fully accepted His Teachings. Just as you and I, they wanted to see something startling. They did not fully accept His Doctrine, – but yet, when they walked with Him their hearts “burned”, – although their eyes and ears were holden by their unbelief. And so the disciples saw Jesus in His resurrected body for but a moment.
And now what about the twelve legions of angels? If our Precious One had called them forth, would they have been visible to the human eye? And if they had appeared, what would the “crowd” have done? You know exactly what they would have done, – taken refuge in any shelter they could have found. But He let the swine of human thought kill His body to show us what could take place if one believed in God.
And now, – since Jesus said, “The works that I do, ye shall do also”, – what about your Legions of Angels and the Heavenly Hosts? Well, they are HERE and NOW to you, – if you are YOU, and accept your God-given Heritage as did Jesus.
CONCERNING IMMORTALITY
There is so much talk of and about immortality in the Bible. Jesus emphasized the idea by repetition: “This is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God” – and “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” Yet all religions seem to end at the crucifixion. The space between immortality and the thing called life on this planet is called death. In other words, while we are repeating the words of Jesus Christ and professing to follow him, we only go as far as the crucifixion.
A man may insist that he is living only with the idea of going to heaven, and that only when he arrives there will be happy … yet, point a loaded gun at that man which if fired would cause him to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and he will scream for help and protection. Would Jesus have been speaking the truth when he said, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God”? – just as man says that the wisdom of God is foolishness.
Why do we stop at the crucifixion if we believe in Jesus and his revelation? He was and is the way-shower, and said very definitely, “… the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works … ” Do we believe, or are we just saying words?
And then the host of questions:
Have you ever seen an immortal?
Answer: “No” – the reason is because you do not believe. You cannot see anything you do not believe, regardless. A thousand angels and immortals could stand in your presence and you would see nothing, because you have nothing with which to see. You do not see with thought and argument; you see by recognition, and without that, nothing happens but a repetition of the ancestor teaching.
Nothing is gained by human reason, for the minute it touches inspiration, inspiration disappears. The disciples could not sustain the visible Presence of Jesus Christ because they could not believe. They wanted to make him a “spirit” or apparition concocted by human thought. So he disappeared from their sight without going anywhere; it being beyond their capacity to grasp the reality of LIFE eternal.
No one can prove it as long as he is trying to show it to another. If you are doing it to see whether it is true or not, it will not happen for it is not something that results from taking thought, but something that already is; a merging into the one thing called LIFE – which is indivisible and eternal. Nothing really happens but SELF discovery as the mystification of the “self” fades away. Self-discovery is fraught with light and with the ability to understand some of the things called miracles – such as the telescoping of time, “you say it is four months until the harvest…” There is no explaining it, and no way to prove it to satisfy the curiosity of unbelieving man. There are many other dimensions that will be revealed when the pure BELIEF is established.
The man “whose breath is in his nostrils” is behind the iron curtain of ancestor teaching – he runs through the gamut of birth, growth, maturity, and decay. There is nothing else for him, so he concocts a sort of golden-streeted heaven to which he is going and where he will have his food and lodging without working, and imagines he will be divinely happy with nothing to do all day; he fights off disease and accident, both of which would make a quick end of his misery here on earth.
This can only take place as you BELIEVE – not believe in the human sense of the word, but a pure unconscious acceptance of the Presence. I say unconscious advisedly, because until you actually become unconscious of a thing you are not fully aware of it. When you are unconscious of the air you breathe you pay no attention to it – the moment you become conscious of it, you begin to have difficulties with it – and so is it with anything. To be absent from the body and present with the LAW, or the Lord, is exactly this thing.
The discovery of LIFE is not something to be talked about. It is something to experience. Interesting about Lazarus; I think often of him. He was Jesus’ best friend. He was not a disciple – yet it is recorded that Jesus spent most of his leisure time with the Lazarus family. Why? Then came the news that Lazarus was sick. Jesus tarried two days. Why? When the Centurion asked for help for his servant, whom Jesus did not know, he said, “I will” and healed the servant lying ill at a great distance in the self-same hour.
Why did he not say: “I will” in the case of Lazarus? – but he tarried. Why? Could it have been that some experiment was going on? And then two more days and the word came that “Lazarus is dead,” but even that did not disturb him. Why? And then he raised him up. The moment the WORD of LIFE touched the decaying flesh, it was instantly back to life.
What became of Lazarus? Where did he go? Why did not Lazarus stay at the time of the crucifixion? He disappeared. Why? Because he was functioning on a level of immortality that men do not believe in. They know they must die or break life in order to gain immortality – and so Lazarus did the same thing as Jesus did when he resurrected himself; he almost instantly disappeared. Jesus only appeared when the belief of his disciples was stimulated to a point of recognition sufficient to see him.
The law is so simple you stumble over it. The Law is “BELIEVE” and until this takes place, you cannot see an immortal. You will have to go around the stupid pattern of reincarnation until you have exhausted the ancestor teaching and discovered you are right back where you were before you listened to the old Adam word, and started a creation of a universe that was already created and called “good.” Ever since then, you have been superimposing this illusion on the real, and every time you discover the permanent identity under the layers of human teaching and belief, you have what the world calls a miracle or a sudden healing.
There are signs all over the place, but there are no signs given to the curious one.
The End